Truth behind the Secrets
by Anii Ayers
Summary: Jess is new. She is alone until... he smiles at her. Her world is thrown upside down as she fights to discover the truth behind the secrets... This is set in the new school year after the final episode of season 7 of MI High.
1. Chapter 1 - The Boy who Smiled

Chapter 1: The Boy who Smiled 

I stared quietly at the sign. It told me I was in the right place. My map told me I was in the right place. The teacher walking over to me said I was in the right place. So why did it feel so wrong?

This place was supposed to be a new start for me. Away from my old so-called friends, away from the drama. I wanted to move to begin a new adventure somewhere else but there's a difference between wanting something and the actual doing something.

I didn't expect that I would actually have to move here with my mum and sister all the way to Scotland! I also didn't expect to move all the way from Elderfields School to St Hearts, one of the schools I actually had picked out when I was told I was moving here.

As I took a deep breath and stepped into the school, I saw chaos. People ran around hallways and people slammed and opened doors everywhere. It was insane. There were people everywhere! I noticed that everyone was stood in groups, not really associating with anyone else but the few around them. They all knew each other from last year and the years before. I didn't know anyone. Again, I was alone.

I wandered down an empty hallway looking for my class when a group of four kids walked past me. There was a girl with bright red hair, a pale face and green eyes. There was another girl with dark skin, brown eyes and black hair. There was a boy with blonde hair and blue eyes. The last boy in the group had dark brown hair and brown eyes. He had a smart, sarcastic sort of walk. You can tell a lot about a person from how they walk…

It was him who smiled at me as I watched them go past. He had a gorgeous smile. As they turned the corner, I sat down outside my class, verging on tears. Everyone had a friend, or more than one friend and I had no-one. I felt alone, truly alone, for the first time in months. It was fine in the summer holidays, between the old school year and the new one as I had things to do to keep me busy. Here, I had nothing to do but schoolwork and even a lesson ends eventually.

Suddenly, I heard the bell signal that class was about to begin. I stood back up and walked into class as other students ran towards my room. The group I had seen earlier were walking casually towards the classroom too. I grabbed a seat that was right at the back of the room so I could be hidden away. The boy that smiled at me sat one seat in front of me and one to the left. His friends sat on his left.

The lesson was maths so I wouldn't have to put too much effort in. Maths was what I was good at. Maths was easy. Just as I thought this, the teacher walked in. I recognized him as being Mr Flatly, the head teacher of the school. The hair that was left on his head was grey and he had kind, old eyes. He wore glasses and looked a little… clueless.

"Right class, my name is Mr Flatly but most of you know that, and this is your first lesson of the year!" he said excitedly with a giddy, almost childlike look on his face. The class groaned, as expected. The only person who didn't groan was the boy who smiled at me. In fact, he looked pleased.

"And probably our last with all the work we do!" he whispered quietly to his friends. They silently giggled before turning back to the teacher, who had begun explaining that we were going to have a mini test. I didn't exactly know what the boy meant but I assumed he meant that we get a lot of homework, a good thing for people like me.

"Preston, could you hand out the maths quizzes for me," Mr Flatly asked a student in the first row. Preston got up and began to complain about putting quizzes on paper instead of something else. I didn't really listen to Preston or what he was saying. I was too busy looking at the boy who smiled at me. He was staring at his pencil with a bored expression. He was waiting for something, I could tell, only what? The boy turned his head to the right and I looked away. Hopefully, he hadn't seen me looking at him as Preston had just blocked him from seeing me to give me my test.

I looked at the paper that was on my desk with disbelief. There were questions about the foil method and Pythagoras' theorem! It was things I could have done when I was ten! I heard a laugh come from the boy as he looked over his paper. Perhaps I wasn't the only one who thought that the paper was shockingly easy.

I answered every question on the test within five minutes. I didn't know who to give my paper to or what to do next so I decided to ask someone what to do. The boy had finished his paper a little while after I did so I decided to ask him. I tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around to look at me.

"Hey, what do we do after we finish the test?" I asked him very quietly, so I didn't disturb Mr Flatly. He looked at me in a kind way, with another smile, I noticed.  
"Don't worry about it until you have finished," he whispered before turning back around.  
"I have finished," I told him with one of my own smiles. He looked at me questioningly so I lifted up my paper to show him. He grabbed the paper, still with a look of surprise, skimmed over it before passing it back to me.

"My name's Tom," he said, "What's your name?"  
"Jessica, but people call me Jess," I said quietly with a smile. Tom smiled back.  
"Well, Jess, you would wait to have your test marked as a group but you just had your test marked by me," he said seriously before smiling that gorgeous smile.  
"And what did I get?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.  
"Full marks, as long as I also got full marks!" he replied. He turned back around to his friends, who were still doing their work.

I had noticed, during my conversation with Tom, that his friends were carefully watching us from the corner of their eyes. It was barely noticeable but I saw it. The pale girl with red hair turned to him with a faint smile tugging at her lips.  
"Finally," she started, "Someone just as nerdy as you!"


	2. Chapter 2 - Secrets

Chapter 2: Secrets

The next day started the same way. I walked to class. I sat outside it. Tom and his friends walked past and he smiled at me again. The maths class was the same. The break between classes was spent the same way; alone.

It was the second to last lesson of the day when I saw Tom again. He wasn't with his friends but on his own. He had the same History class as me. When I got to class, early as always, I saw him sat on the floor outside of the room. He turned his head towards me when I came into his view and he smiled that amazing smile of his.

"Hello Tom," I said as neutrally as possible, trying to hide the curiosity in my voice.  
"Hello, Jess," he said in the voice I had used. It sounded brilliant coming from him. I stared at him while he stared at me, trying to find something to say.  
"I have to say I was both shocked and pleased to meet someone who takes an interest in school come to this school," he said, breaking the silence that I was beginning to enjoy.

"Me too, I'm shocked that I'm not the only one who likes maths," I admitted to him as I sat next to him on the floor.  
"I love maths, mainly because it helps with computer programming or hacking," he said calmly before realizing what he had said, "Wait, forget the hacking thing, I didn't say that!" I laughed at his panic while he looked at me with a smile.  
"Oh, don't worry about the hacking thing. In fact, what hacking thing?" I asked him.

The bell rang as we both stood up. Everyone ran down the hallway as we walked in, trying to avoid as much of the rush as possible. I sat at the back, like in every lesson I had that day, and Tom sat next to me.

About halfway through the lesson, I heard a faint beeping noise. It was almost audible but almost silent. My excellent hearing could pick it up without me thinking I was hearing things. I wasn't. It was coming from the left of me, coming from Tom. Tom tensed when he heard it so I tried to pretend I was working while I secretly observed him from the very corner of my eye.

He fumbled around in his bag, looking for something. Finally, he found a pencil with a flashing red end. It was where the noise was coming from. Tom smiled as he looked at the pencil before looking around at the people near him. He didn't see me looking at him through a shield of my own long brown hair.

"Miss, I have to go to the dentist!" he said to the teacher with his hand raised. The teacher let him leave without any questions.

By this point, I was curious. I was confused. I wanted to know what the pen meant and I wanted to know where he went so I did the only rational thing for someone in my situation to do.

"Miss, Tom reminded me, I have a dentist's appointment too!"


	3. Chapter 3 - Making Plans

Chapter 3: Making Plans

I left the class quietly, with the sole purpose of finding Tom. I saw his head bob around the corner of a corridor. Stealthily, I followed him down the corridor to another one. From one corridor to the next I went until, finally, he entered a room.

I waited about a minute before heading over to the door. The sign said it was a Janitor's closet. I opened the door a fraction of a centimetre but I couldn't see him. I cautiously pushed the door open further to find nothing. It was official. The closet was empty! Tom had managed to disappear into thin air.

"I wonder what Frank needs us to do today," I heard a voice say from the corridor ahead of me.  
"Yeah, it feels like only yesterday we defeated corpse and saved the world!" another female voice cried from the same corridor.  
"Shh! You never know who might be around," a new male voice whispered. The original voice apologized for the second voice.

I heard a door open and then I heard it shut. I could make out the sound of a lift going down but that couldn't be right. St Hearts didn't have lifts installed, did they? I poked my head around the corner to see the corridor empty again. Slowly, I tiptoed over to the closet and opened it to find it empty. Again.

My heart pounded against my chest. I had just heard four people disappear. They could be hurt or lost or… Frank, defeated corpse, saved the world? What does it mean?

Quickly, I walked back to class, with a million thoughts of a million possibilities on what I had heard the people say. I was very confused, but mainly shocked that Tom would be part of something like… whatever was going on. He seemed very normal, nerdy but normal. The fact that he was so obviously associated with the other people who entered the closet intrigued me more than anything. I desperately wanted to know what was going on.

It was then when I decided it. I was going to find out what Tom was involved with even if it killed me. I needed to know. Already my brain was forming plans on how to do it without him knowing. It might freak him out if he thought I was stalking him. It wasn't like that though. I wasn't stalking him. I just needed answers. I was curious by nature.

When I sat back down in class, after I had explained to the teacher why I was back early from the dentists, I came up with my first plan on how to find out the truth. At home, I had a spy camera from when I was younger and was convinced that I wanted to be one. A spy. I decided that if I put the camera in a flower pot on the window sill outside of the closet, I could see who goes in and out of the room on my computer back at home.

From someone else's perspective, I was being obsessive but I can promise it wasn't like that. I was curious to find out what was going on and would have done anything to find out. Also, to be honest, I was bored. I wanted to do something, anything that could take up the spare time I had all of the time. Finding out the truth was something I could do.

When I got home from school, I hooked up the camera to my laptop. I tested that I could record using the camera at home by putting it in an empty vase. Thankfully, the test worked meaning that I could go ahead with my plan. All I had to do the next day was to place the camera in a pot and then go to my first class. It was easy. It was a good plan…


	4. Chapter 4 - What was on the Camera

Chapter 4: What was on the Camera

"Hey, Jess!" Tom said to me as he sat next to me in maths.  
"Hi, Tom!" I replied in the same tone that he had used. I noticed that Tom was holding his pencil very tightly in his hand. He stared at me intently and I blushed. People didn't look at me like he had looked at me then. I was too plain. I had light coloured skin that was neither pale nor tan that, actually, went with my light grey eyes. My hair was a medium shade of brown and my features were soft. I was basically the definition of average.

"So, what is your favourite colour?" he asked casually as if it was a completely normal question to ask, out of the blue.  
"Um… Blue, why?" I replied with a hint of curiosity in my voice.  
"Why? Because my favourite colour is blue and I wanted to know what yours was," he said simply, almost as if the answer was obvious.

"Ok, what is your favourite food?" I asked him. He smiled before answering.  
"I don't have a favourite food, I eat to survive, not for fun," he said seriously causing me to laugh. He asked me why I was laughing.  
"It's just… such a brilliant answer!" I replied, still laughing.  
"Well, I am the king of Brilliant answers," he said sarcastically.

I turned back to my desk to do my work while Tom stared at his pencil. I was very interested in Tom. I think I liked him. A lot. He was very cute and made me laugh. He seemed to want to know more about me, which made me like him even more.

"What's your favourite subject at school?" he asked me in a whisper as the teacher was looking our way.  
"Well, I love maths, but I think PE would be my favourite, favourite subject," I whispered back to him, "What's yours?"  
"I love maths too but my favourite subject is IT, you know, for the hacking thing…" he replied before turning properly to face me.

"I'm surprised you like PE," he said to me.  
"Well, I've loved karate since I was about two but I enjoy dance and other sports too. Why are you surprised I like PE? Do I not look sporty?" I said, wondering what he would say next. He blushed.  
"You don't not look sporty, double negative. It's just that… well, people who like maths normally don't like actual physical activity," he said carefully.

"Well, I am the exception to that then, aren't I," I said with a smile. He smiled back, that gorgeous, sarcastic smile of his before turning back to his work. I turned back to mine.

Suddenly, I heard the beeping noise again. I turned my head ever so slightly towards Tom to find him with his hand waving in the air to catch Mr Flatly's attention. Tom created an excuse and then left, probably to go to the janitor's closet. I felt an urge to follow after him but I suppressed it. I would be able to see it all on my laptop when I got home…

I didn't see Tom in any of my lessons for the whole day. However, I did see him leave the school with his friends just after I left maths. They were probably just ditching school, something I had never had the courage, or want, to do.

When I got home, I ran straight up to my bedroom to my laptop. I bounced in my seat as I waited for the laptop to turn on. I clicked on the file I was keeping the camera's video on to find it, just sat there, waiting for me to press play.

The video started with a corridor full of students. I sped through about five minutes of footage of kids stood around, waiting for the bell to ring. The bell rung, sending them away. Almost the second everyone in the corridor left, I saw a man in a janitors uniform walk towards the closet. He looked around suspiciously before reaching for the light switch. Instead of turning a light on, he slid the switch to the side to reveal what looked like a fingerprint scanner. What was going on in this school?

The man pressed his thumb on the scanner and opened the door but before he could shut it, a woman turned around the corner and stopped him.  
"Frank, we need to talk!" she whispered in a stern tone. Frank? Was this the Frank those people were talking about. I listened closely to the video. It was getting interesting.

"Stella, we can talk later, my team will be here soon and I need to be down there when they get here," he said as he turned back to the door.  
"Fine," Stella said, "But we will have to talk about this eventually, we can't just keep pretending that there isn't something between us. I'll wait until you're ready to talk. Anyway, I need to come down with you. I'm observing the mission."

Frank sighed and walked into the closet, holding the door open for Stella. They both had dark hair and strong facial features. They looked at each other very kindly, with a hint of longing. I could tell they loved each other or had loved each other but there was something in the way. I couldn't tell what.

I sped up the video until I saw Tom and his friends come into view. The girl with dark hair slid the light panel open and pressed her thumb against the scanner. Tom opened the door and they all walked in. I sped the video up again, waiting patiently for something to happen. Eventually, I saw Tom's friends leave, but they were clad all in black. They looked very serious.

The red haired girl was holding a pencil next to her ear and appeared to be talking to someone on it like it was a mobile phone. The blonde boy was holding a black device that looked like it had a screen on it. What was going on? The video had made me more confused than I was before. I seemed to be finding more questions than answers…

I would have to create a new plan. Something better, a little more extreme and a little more reckless. Only what?


	5. Chapter 5 - Something new for a new Plan

Chapter 5: Something new for a new Plan

I spent the rest of my first week doing the same things. I got to know Tom better, I watched as he made excuses in class to go to the janitor's closet, I sat alone at break and lunch. School was becoming a little bit boring.

Every day, when I got home, I would go up to my room and turn on my laptop. I would then check the video footage to find the same sort of thing I saw on Wednesday. Tom and his friends would go into the closet just after Frank would. The only significant difference in the footage was that I did not see the woman, Stella, again.

On Friday, I had pretty much given up hope that I would see something that would help me figure out what was going on until, in my first lesson, Tom wasn't there. He would normally attend at least the first lesson before leaving with his friends but, for the first time that week, he wasn't there. It was probably nothing strange. Perhaps he was ill. Perhaps he had gone to the closet early. Perhaps he was invisible.

I had no reason to worry or to think it wasn't normal but… I had this feeling that something wasn't right. I didn't know why I felt that way but I did and I couldn't help it. I had always been able to sense when something was wrong and this was one of those times. However, knowing what I knew about the closet, I ignored the feeling and pretended nothing was wrong.

When I got to my PE class, I noticed that Tom's friends weren't there. They were normally in the same class as me for the lesson but, for the first time that week, they weren't there. Again, knowing what I knew, this shouldn't have worried me. They were probably with Tom in the closet but I just knew that something wasn't right.

I ran home faster than normal so I could check the footage. My laptop took a minute to turn on. My heart was pounding in my chest. I pressed play on the video. After fast-forwarding through five minutes of nothing, I found something.

Frank walked down the corridor in a suit with Stella next to him. When they got to the closet door they simply leant against it. They looked very serious and the kind look in their eyes towards each other had gone. Something was happening.  
"The team should be here in a minute," Frank said to Stella, who looked at him and nodded.  
"Good," she said as she turned her head back to looking at the wall.

"Frank. Stella. What's going on?" I heard someone say from down the corridor. Frank and Stella turned towards the voice. I saw Tom's friends come into view of the camera.  
"Yeah, what are you doing up here?" the boy asked them. Stella and Frank exchanged a look.

"Well, Dan, we have some news, some bad news unfortunately," Frank said to the boy, who I presumed was called Dan. I felt a slight bit of happiness. I knew one of Tom's friend's names! I didn't have to keep calling him 'the boy.'  
"What is it?" the girl with dark hair asked cautiously.

"Aneisha, it's a very delicate situation. We can't have you, any of you, panicking or doing something crazy about this," Frank explained with a slightly pained look on his face. The girl with the dark hair, Aneisha, frowned.  
"Frank, just tell us what is going on!" the girl with red hair said loudly.

"Keri, calm down. We'll tell you," Frank said before sighing, "Stella, can you tell them."  
"Of course," Stella said forlornly.

"Yesterday, Tom went missing," she said as Keri, Aneisha and Dan gasped worriedly.  
"We checked security camera footage. He was on his way home when a black van with the word 'Morte' on it pulled up next to him, grabbed him and threw him in their van," she carried on.

"Morte? What's that?" Keri asked.  
"It's… Italian for death," Frank explained sadly. He looked like he was almost in tears.  
"Who are they? Are they a new corpse?" Aneisha asked.  
"We don't know. However, we did get a look at the driver's face. She seemed to look a lot like Grimmera, an old criminal from the fifties. It can't be her though, she was fifty then, she has to be dead by now, unless she is one hundred and fourteen, which is unlikely…" Stella said with a slightly hopeful look on her face.

"Stella, you thought the Mastermind was dead and he wasn't. How do you know this Grimmera person is dead?" Dan said. Stella looked at Frank with despair.  
"I know. Look, we are going to take a risk. We are going to leave this door unlocked, just in case Tom comes back. I'm going to need you all to come with us to look for him and find out who these 'Morte' people are. No-one is to go down into the base, okay?" Frank explained.

"Frank, are you sure leaving the door open is a good idea? Someone might find the base!" Aneisha asked.  
"We know it's a risk but, even if someone goes in, they wouldn't know how to go down to the base. We leave it unlocked in the holidays for Mr Flatly and nothing has ever happened so we presume it will be fine. Go get changed. We will be leaving as soon as possible," Frank said before he and Stella walked away.

"What if we can't find Tom? What will we do?" Dan asked quietly while everyone looked down.  
"I don't know. We'll just have to find him," Keri said with a look of determination in her face.  
"Yeah, we can do this, Tom's our friend. We have to find him!" Aneisha said, adopting Keri's determined pose. They walked away. I sped through the video to find nothing else.

I sat at my desk in shock. Tom was gone. He might not come back. It wasn't until then when I realized how much he meant to me. The fact that he may be gone forever killed me. I hoped that his friends would find him. I suddenly felt really guilty about the plan that had formed in my head. I felt like I was using Tom's disappearance to my advantage. I didn't mean to. I would have done anything to get him back.

My new plan was a good one. It was dangerous but might actually give me the answers I needed. I was going to go to the closet and figure out how to go down to their base… But first I wanted to find out what corpse was. Out of curiosity.


	6. Chapter 6 - KORPS and Flaws

Chapter 6: KORPS and Flaws

While my laptop was still on, I went on to the only place I could find out what corpse was. Google. I opened up the page and typed in 'corpse.' All that came up was pictures of dead bodies and websites of people who cremate the dead.

I tried typing in 'corpse defeated' but, again, I found nothing. It was as if it didn't exist but I knew that it did. Confused, I racked my brain for what corpse could stand for or what the letters could be organised into, when it hit me. The letters. What if it wasn't corpse, but something else? What if it was corpse but with different letters!

I tried the first idea I had on what the letters could be changed into. I typed 'korps' in on google to find a news article. In fact, I had found a whole bunch of news articles and websites with different conspiracy theories on them. I had guessed right… almost. In all of the articles korps was spelt in all capital letters. KORPS!

I clicked on the first article I had seen. It was about a building that had exploded, a building that belonged to an organisation called KORPS. The next article was about a germ outbreak believed to have been caused by KORPS. There was a website written by a man who had theories about what KORPS was, a terrorist group, a group of enemy spies, anything!

Another thing that interested me was an article that included an interview to a Chief Agent of MI9, Stella Knight. Could it be the same Stella I had seen on the video? The same Stella who knew Tom? I clicked play on the video to see that the woman looked exactly the same as the Stella I had seen. I stared at my laptop screen with a million questions bouncing around in my head. What was Tom mixed-up with?

I was beginning to get a head-ache so I turned my laptop off and lay down in bed, looking up at the ceiling.  
"What is going on?" I whispered to myself. I was so confused and stressed. I decided to go outside to go and calm myself.

I found myself walking into the shed, which had been moved from my old home to my new one, where I used to practice karate when I was younger. I still used it just a lot less often. It had always relaxed me so I decided to practice again. I kicked and punched and let loose for the first time in weeks. It felt so good to do something without having to think.

"Jess, it's really nice to see you practicing again, come back inside when you're done. Tea's ready," my mum said from the doorway of the shed. I jumped back in surprise. I hadn't known she was there. My mum had always been very good at surprising me.

I stopped and followed her back inside, smiling. If I ignored the worry I felt from Tom being missing, and the confusion from the whole Frank/Stella thing, and the stress of doing what I was going to do the next day, I was very content…

After I had finished my tea, I went back up to my bedroom to create a detailed plan outlining what I would do when I got to school the next day. I got out all my boxes of old spy related products I had begged my mum to buy me when I was younger.

The first thing I did was create a document on my laptop so I could type out and illustrate my plan. I created three headings. When? How? What? I then underlined them and put them in a bold font. I liked being organised.

I started with the when column, as it was the first thing I needed to do. Quickly, I realized a big flaw in the plan that I had in my head. I wasn't at school the next day. The next day was Saturday! I couldn't do what I needed to do if school wasn't on. I wouldn't be able to get into the school in the first place.

Panicking, I logged on to the school website to see if there was a club, event or anything that would allow me to enter the school on a Saturday. I was desperate. I looked at the online notice board to find that there was nothing. There was no way to get into school. At least, there wasn't a legal way to get into the school…


	7. Chapter 7 - Breaking and Entering

Chapter 7: Breaking and Entering

I waited until Saturday afternoon until I told my mum that I was staying over at a friend's house for the night. She believed me. Hurriedly, I went upstairs and got changed, also putting my equipment into a backpack under my pajamas. I decided to go full on spy with the whole clothing situation and put on an off-shoulder deep purple jumper that sat at the very top of my hips. I wore tight black waist high leggings and my dark purple, almost black, boots. My hair was down and it could cover my face from cameras if I needed it to.

I was ready, physically. Mentally, I wasn't so sure. I was going to break into my school, go down to who knows what and just be completely and utterly reckless. It wasn't something that I would do! Was I ready to possibly ruin my life? Was I ready to be arrested, possibly, just to find out what was in that closet?

Before I could change my mind, I left the house, got on the bus and got off a bit away from school. I kept my breathing silent and even as I walked down the street. No-one was around, thankfully. I tried half-heartedly to convince myself that what I was doing was wrong, because it was, but I was too desperate for answers that I could get no other way.

From outside the school, I found an unlocked window. It was fate. Or someone had really poorly checked that they were shut. I knew from the leaflet I got about the school that there was an alarm, though, so I couldn't just climb into the window as the camera things would sense movement and I'd be screwed. The camera things sounded expensive and technical but they were neither. My grandma had them in her house so they couldn't have been expensive!

Weirdly enough, I had practised disabling them at my grandma's house back in my spying phase that was becoming more and more useful to me. It was simple, really. All I had to do was download the program that controlled them and then use the school's account. The only problem was that I didn't know the school's password. I knew the username; it was StHearts.

It wouldn't be too hard to find the password, though. Tom wasn't the only one who knew how to hack things… After finding the password, I typed it into the account page and then had full control of the camera things! The program would only allow me to disable one camera at once, I guess in an attempt to stop people like me from doing what I was about to do, so I would have to be careful.

Earlier in the day, I had transferred the program that gave me control of the cameras onto my tablet, so I could carry it around with me to disable the cameras.

First, I turned off the camera in the room with the window. The program showed me a floor plan of the school so I could target specific cameras in specific rooms. Silently, and with much effort, I climbed into the school through the window. I glanced over the floor plan to see that there was two cameras in the hallway, each opposite and a little bit away from each other.

"Oh god… How am I going to do this?" I asked myself. My whisper felt like a scream in the silence and the dark of the school. I felt sure that someone would have heard it, but according to the program's movement sensing technology, there was no-one in this school, not even me. Still, the sound bounced off the walls creating an echo…

Suddenly a plan formed in my head. I would bounce off the walls! The cameras had a weak spot. If I stood under them, they didn't know I was there, even though they should have been able to see me. Also, the cameras were close enough that I could switch which camera was on as I ran to underneath the next one. I would have to be fast but I could do it. I knew I could.

I turned the furthest away camera, which was on the wall opposite the door of the room I was in and off to the right, off as I opened the classroom's door. I stood underneath the camera that was on with my tablet pressed painfully close to my heart and my backpack pressing tenderly into my back.  
"I can do this. This is easy. Come on, Jess!" I said to myself resolutely.

I help out my tablet just enough for me to turn off the camera above me. My finger hovered over the button. In slow-motion, my finger came down and I bounced off the wall towards the other camera. I breathed in and out as my heart pounded. I checked on the tablet. I hadn't set the alarm off. I had done it!

Slowly, so I didn't signal the alarm above me, I slid round the corner of the next corridor, also turning off the camera in the next corridor as I turned. Seeing where I was, I smiled the biggest smile. It was definitely fate that that classroom's window was open.

At the end of the corridor and on the wall on the left, was the janitor's closet!


	8. Chapter 8 - Not Alone

Chapter 8: Not Alone

It had been so dark in the school that I hadn't even recognized the fact that the classroom I had found the open window in, was my history room, the room that I followed Tom out of. I also hadn't noticed that the corridors I had been through were the ones I followed Tom down to see him go into the janitor's closet for the first time.

As I walked down the corridor, I noticed that there was a room at the end of a corridor that branched off the corridor I was walking down, that had a light on and the door was open. Inside the room, I could make out the outline of a person, a person who was getting up and walking towards the door.

Panicking, I opened the first door I saw, forgetting to turn off the alarm! Suddenly, my tablet flashed red and two buttons appeared on the screen. One said 'Call the police' and the other said 'Ignore. False alarm.' I hadn't realized that the program that gave me control of the cameras also gave me control of what to do when the cameras detected movement.

I pressed the ignore button and sank to the floor. Everything I had done up until then could have been a lot easier. I could have just walked through the school, ignoring the alarms as soon as they flashed up on the program. There wasn't even an alarm sound, as my tablet's volume was turned all the way down, so it wasn't as if anyone would have known!

Then I remembered. There was a person coming towards me. I tensed, automatically, slowing my breathing and silencing it. I could hear footsteps in the corridor, slowly edging towards the room I was in.

"Hello? Are… Are you an alien? Have you come to take me away?" I heard someone say. I recognized their voice. It was Mr Flatly! He was in the school? Why? It was night time. Didn't he have a home?  
"I come in peace," he whimpered, getting closer to the door. I sat in silence. I didn't know what to do. That's when it hit me. I didn't have to do anything.

I quickly got up and threw a chair out into the parking lot through a window that I had opened from the inside. As I suspected, my tablet flashed again. Thank goodness I hadn't come in through the car park. There was a camera out there as well! I sent the alarm message from the program, not my tablet, to the nearest computer that I presumed was in Mr Flatly's office.

Just as the door handle turned, I heard a reasonably loud siren come from the direction of the room I had seen him come out of.  
"Oh dear, there are aliens outside. If I stay in here they can't get me. If I call the police they'll come in and abduct me! I'll… just ignore it," he said as his voice drifted away from my room. I heard his door shut.

I sat in silence for a minute, waiting to make sure that I was sure that I was ready to go out there.  
"If you're sure you can do this from here, go to the closet. If you're not, Jess, then leave before you get yourself arrested!" I thought. I wanted to do this. I had come that far. It was too late to turn back. I took a deep breath before emerging into the corridor and walking towards the closet…

**Sorry about the super short chapter (593 words - not including this bit)! The next one will be longer, possibly the longest so far...  
The next chapter may not be published that soon, as I want to make it longer and better than the others, and may not be published this week. This is also because I am going to write a few more chapters with it...**


	9. Chapter 9 - Going Down

Chapter 9: Going Down

Standing outside the closet door, I took another deep breath. I slid the light panel open, just to check I was definitely at the right closet. When the light slid open to reveal the scanner, I knew I was in the right place. I opened the door as quietly as I could, because Mr Flatly was still in the school, and walked in, getting my torch, that I couldn't have used earlier because of the motion sensing cameras, out of my backpack and held it in my hand.

As I stood in the closet, I saw another light panel. I tried to slide it open but it didn't work. I flipped the switch up and turned the light on in the closet. I still held onto my torch but I had turned it off to save battery power.

Carefully, I looked around the closet, searching for a way to go down to the base. I didn't see another light switch. All I saw was wires, paint tubs, a ladder, overalls, a radiator and more paint tubs. I couldn't see any visible switches, levers or buttons. But I knew, from countless films and books, that you can't always see what you're looking for.

I thought carefully about the light panel and why it was used. It was used as the scanner because people don't typically slide light panel across and so the base would never be found. However, if someone did get into the cupboard, they wouldn't be able to go down to the base because the way to go down wasn't something people do normally.

Normal people didn't slide across light switch panels. I realized that I would have to do something that people, even people like me who knew there was something here, wouldn't see as normal to do. That was how people didn't find the base. It was easy. I knew that I just had to do something people don't do.

I tried pulling down an overall from the rack. Nothing happened. I tried sliding up the ladder. Nothing happened. I tried putting the rest of the wires onto a shelf. Again, nothing. I pushed shelves and pressed my hand against the wall in several different areas but nothing happened! I was beginning to lose any hope that I had left when I noticed something odd.

There was one paint can that was leaking green paint but nowhere in the entire school was anything painted that shade of green. Why would there be that coloured paint here if it wasn't needed? I also noticed that the paint dripping down the side of it was dry. It looked as if it had been painted on. Squinting, I moved my head even closer to the paint tub to see a faint outline on the front of it.

It was an outline of an arrow pointing down, the direction I wanted to go. Feeling a new sense of optimism, I frantically searched the area near the paint can to see if I could see anything suspicious. All I could see near the paint can was a bottle of water and a mop leaning towards the door in a bucket.

I looked closer at the bucket and mop. I touched the white bit at the bottom of the mop to discover that it wasn't attached to the rest of the mop! I had found something! My gaze lifted from the bottom of the bucket to the top of the mop. I smiled.

Confidently, I turned to face the door I had come into the closet from. I was positive that I had found a way down. I reached out to the mop handle, pulled it towards me and heard a loud beep followed by another three. As the beeps sounded, the arrow on the paint can appeared in neon green and flashed.

I looked up, suddenly filled with fear, and then looked down to my right before the ground fell beneath me! Holding back a scream, I fell down while my feet dug into the floor of the closet, that was descending down to… somewhere with me. I slowly knelt down onto the ground and clung to it from the fear that I would simply fly off. I was falling down so fast that I was sure that the ground beneath me would carry on going while I was suspended in the air.

Unexpectedly, I saw a green band of light begin travel from my feet up. I felt another pulse of fear. I didn't know that there would be a scanner on my body! I carefully stood up, my legs shaking, and watched as the band carried on roaming up my body and towards my head. As it reached my neck, I covered my eyes from the bright green light.

I kept my eyes closed, still falling down, waiting for something to happen, waiting for the scanner to realize that I shouldn't have been there but nothing happened. I carried on falling down, down, down, slowly opening my eyes and moving my hands away from my face. I couldn't hear anything, no siren, no bell or buzzer to alert someone of my presence. I only had one question. What did the scanner do?

My question was answered as I looked down to see my purple jumper replaced by a tight tunic, made from a strange material that I had never seen before that stopped just below my waist, making it more of a really short dress than a top. I was wearing the same leggings that I was wearing before and black knee-high boots with a black leather jacket. I also wore a pair of nerd glasses!

With my mouth wide open, I stared at my clothes, expecting them to change back to what they were before. Why am I wearing this, I asked myself in a whisper. It was then that I realized that the floor that was falling with me was beginning to fall slower, beginning to stop…

I held my breath subconsciously. My heart pounded against my chest. I stood a little straighter. I was about to be in the base. I was about to find the answers I had been craving for a week. My palms felt sweatier. I felt the lift come to a complete stop that produced a metal door in front of me. Whatever was behind that door was the truth that I had been so determined to find. I smiled, finally letting what I had done to get there sink in as the door opened and I saw what was behind it. My jaw dropped as I took in what was around me and took a few wobbly steps forward…

Forward towards the truth behind the secrets.


	10. Chapter 10 - The Base

****Chapter 10 is finally here! **Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I have had controlled assessments at school and I was ill for a week not too long ago. Thank you so much for reviewing the story, it means a lot that my stories are being read. I sincerely hope that you like this chapter as the best is yet to come!**

Chapter 10 – The Base

The room was dark and a lot bigger than I had expected. The room had rounded walls with five cylindrical pillars holding up the flat, concrete ceiling and, thankfully, stopping the hundreds of metres of dirt that I expected were between me and the safety of daylight. Discoloured tiles hung off of the pillars and the walls underneath orange, metal bands that ran around the room in the middle of the wall with neon green lights above the band and plain concrete behind them.

On the left side of the room, between two of the five pillars and a little bit forward, was a clean white desk with a fancy looking computer that made me feel genuinely sorry for my sad, old laptop. Underneath the desk was a white set of metal drawers with who-knows what inside. Next to the computer was a little white lamp. Behind the desk was a metal shelving unit filled with little black, grey and white devices, phones and what looked like books.

On the right side of the room, attached to the wall, was a glass board that curved with the shape of the room. It was covered with symbols and carefully drawn shapes in red and black. Next to and underneath these shapes were little pieces of faded paper with words written on them. Black lines attached the shapes and pieces of paper together as if it was a map. I tilted my head and allowed myself to speak to myself with a frown.  
"What is this? What is going on down here?" I asked myself in a whisper that echoed around the room.

Finally, I looked straight down the middle of the room and saw a big, round table with a harsh white light shining out from underneath it. The table had files and documents strewn across it carelessly. Curious, I walked towards the table and glanced at the files to find Tom's name on one in big bold letters. I stared at the file, the file full of pieces of paper, having an internal argument about whether to open it.

My head screamed at me not to while my heart couldn't help wanting to know what was in the folder. My heart and head came to a reasonable conclusion. I knew that if I moved the folder then someone would notice and possibly scan it for fingerprints. They would then register them as mine and I would, to put it in simple terms, be screwed. Tom would find out that I had basically been spying on him, stalking him and I didn't want him to think that. I wasn't down here really because I wanted to creep on Tom, but because I was genuinely curious about what he and his friends did down here.

Putting on my gloves, to hide my fingerprints, I quickly glanced at the clear glass board that was behind the table. It looked like a whiteboard in a classroom but it was made of clear plastic or glass. I decided not to question it as, with my gloves on, I got out my camera. My mum had bought me a professional camera for my fourteenth birthday, back when I went through my photography phase, and I hadn't used it in years so I had decided to put it in my backpack just in case I needed it. I was grateful that I had thought of bringing it as the light was too dim to use my phone.

I lifted open the front cover of the file, being careful not to move it from its place in the very centre of the table, and took a picture of the page inside. I did this with the ten pieces of paper in the file. Even though I took the pictures, I still couldn't bring myself to look at them on the camera in the room. I decided to do it when I got home.

After closing the file, I turned my attention back to the room. I looked at the lift that had taken me down there. I was looking for somewhere to place the cameras I had brought down. Carefully, I attached one camera to a hole in the wall above the entrance to the room. I stepped back to see if it was visible and, when seeing that it wasn't smiled proudly at myself. I found the next best place to put a camera was opposite the lift, so I could see who came in or out of the base. I was very happy with my first two camera placements.

Glancing around the room to see where else to put a camera, I noticed something that I should have noticed before. The lamp on the desk with the awesome computer, was on along with all the other lights in the room. A wave of panic washed over me as I stepped back in shock. Someone had been here. It wasn't left alone as I had been led to believe. Suddenly, almost to confirm my theory, a loud whirring noise sounded! I looked around to see someone jump out at me but no one did. I realized that the noise was coming from the lift, the lift that was quickly bringing someone down to the base…

With my terror levels increasing, I spun in a jagged circle, silently screaming in my head. In a moment of pure luck, I tripped and fell towards a corridor on the right of the room that I hadn't seen before. Stumbling to get up, I crawled down the corridor to find a maze of rooms and separate corridors that broke off from the main one like veins. If I carry on down her, I thought, I am going to get lost.

As I heard the doors of the lift opening, everything slowed down. It was as if someone had pressed paused on my life to let me think. All noises stopped and my movement felt rough and fast. My hair moved as if it was in water as I got up from the floor. Somehow, the world had stopped. Unexpectedly, I felt a little bit calmer. My brain stopped rushing and allowed itself to understand the surroundings. With the world still paused, I debated the options.

I could stay in the small corridor I was in and eavesdrop on the person in the room, with the danger of being found or I could walk around aimlessly in the corridor, make too much noise and have the danger of being found. I might as well find out who this person is, I decided, slowly creeping towards the end of the corridor. The corridor, I noticed, was not adjacent to the main room but came out at an angle meaning that, if I stood at a certain part of the wall, I was invisible to the person, yet I could see and hear them.

The second I made my decision, time seemed to start again and I pressed myself against the wall in time to see Stella and Frank come out of the lift. I subconsciously held my breath as an exit plan formed in my head.

"Now that we've found Tom, I think it's time we talked, Frank," I heard Stella say as she moved towards the desk. I let go of a breath that I hadn't known I was holding. Tom was safe! I suddenly felt a lot more relaxed knowing that Tom was okay. I smiled for a second before remembering where I was. Frank sighed before answering with a simple 'fine.'

"I have two points to make. The first being your team," Stella replied with a serious tone.  
"My team? What's the problem?" he asked with sincere confusion in his voice.  
"The team is comprised of Dan, Keri, Aneisha and Tom, which is the most amount of people on an MI. High team we've had to date and, since having four members instead of three, the team have been excellent," Stella said as Frank looked at her with a mix of surprise and severity.  
"So you're congratulating them?" Frank asked.

"Not exactly. I'm suggesting you find another member," Stella finished, looking at Frank sternly.  
"To replace who?" Frank asked anxiously. Stella shook her head and sighed.  
"Frank, you never were very good at understanding. I'm suggesting that you find a fifth member of MI. High," she said calmly before sitting down on a chair.

"How will we find the new member? Will there be interviews? Will my team get a say in who is picked?" Frank asked whilst sitting down himself.  
"Your team will get a say but they won't get the final decision. There can't be interviews, we don't want disgruntled interviewees who didn't get the job revealing where we are to KORPS or even this new Morte group. Therefore, you and your team need to find someone who meets the criteria by going outside and making some friends," Stella said with a hint of humour in her voice at the end.  
"Or even," she added, "by making the pupils at St Hearts create a CV to find out if anyone at the school could join the team."

Stella got up and began to leave. I slid further back in the corridor to hide myself. Stella was at the lift when Frank got up and turned to her.  
"Stella, what was the second thing you want to talk about?" Frank questioned. Stella walked back into the room and stood close to Frank. She looked up at him almost sadly before answering.

"I wanted to say sorry," she whispered, "I never should have left you, I never should have stopped us from being an us." Frank looked at her blankly.  
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" he asked her as she continued to look at him.  
"I only just realized that I have never said sorry to you," she said before turning and leaving, leaving Frank alone. Shortly after her departure, Frank left too, allowing me to come out of my hiding place.

I sat down on the floor alone. I was confused and couldn't seem to get the energy I needed to wonder what any of Stella and Frank's conversation meant. Slowly, I got out my tablet and checked to see if anyone was near the exit of the janitor's closet. There wasn't so I stood up and left. I left the school and walked home in the night, quiet and alone. I had done everything I needed to do and I was tired. It had been a long day and the days were only going to get longer…


	11. Chapter 11 - Back to School

**I would just like to say that in this chapter, I reach 10,000 words! For me, that is a lot, a lot, a lot of words. Thank you all for helping me get this far!**

Chapter 11: Back to School

I woke to a loud screeching sound and panicked. My heart quickened and my eyes widened in fear. For some reason, probably because I had been very tense for almost a week, I didn't realize for about a minute that the screeching noise, was my alarm clock, telling me to get out of bed and start my second week at St Hearts.

As I fumbled around in my groggy state for the off button on my clock, I thought about how much had happened in one week. It had felt as if it had been months since I started the new school, months since I met Tom and months since I found out about the base and whatever Tom and his friends actually did every day.

Whilst I got dressed into my uniform, I thought about how I still hadn't brought myself to look at Tom's file. I still felt like looking in his file was a step too far.  
"Ha!" I laughed quietly. A step too far? I had already broke into his 'base' and placed cameras there. Was there such a thing as too far, at that point, after all I had done?

Tom would be back at school today, hopefully, if Stella and Frank really meant what they said about finding him, I thought. My heart skipped a beat as I thought about seeing him again. I was surprised at my reaction. I knew that I liked him a lot, but I didn't know if I loved him? I had, after all, only known him for a week! It just… It just felt like I'd known him for a lot longer than that.

Ignoring my thoughts, I bounced down the stairs, feeling a bit bouncier knowing it was just a little **(10,000 words now! Whoo!)** longer until I got to see him.  
"You look happy," my mum said as she jumped out at me from behind the stairs on the way to the kitchen. I recoiled in shock. I hadn't known she was there.

"Yes, I am. My… friend has been… ill for a while now and I can't wait to see them!" I said to her, only slightly avoiding the truth. Mum looked at me slightly suspiciously before smiling. Unexpectedly, she grabbed me and pulled me closer to her. I stared at her bewildered as she hugged me.  
"Mum! What was that for?" I asked as she let me go.

"Oh! I'm just so happy that you have friends! I knew moving here was the right thing to do for you, for us," she said happily before going into the kitchen. She came out with her briefcase and bag. It reminded me of a question I wanted to ask her.

"Mum," I asked, "I feel silly for never asking you but, what is your job?" My mum looked at me. I saw a flash of anger run through her face before it was replaced with a smile.  
"You'll find out soon! I hope you can follow in my footsteps someday," she said wistfully, looking off into the distance before leaving me in the house. I smiled. My mum always loved surprises…

I grabbed my bag and headed out the door, only just realizing what time it was. It was time to see Tom!


	12. Chapter 12 - Confusion

Chapter 12: Confusion

I walked down the school corridor towards my maths class. It was the furthest away class I had so it was taking me a little while. When I finally came into view of the corridor I was met with a surprise.

There he was, sat on the floor like he hadn't gone missing at all. There he was, staring at the wall like I wasn't there. There he was, he was definitely back! My heart sped up after it restarted from the shock of seeing him. I knew he would be back, I just hadn't processed that he would be back, sat like he had never been gone.

I noticed, I really, truly noticed how much I had missed him, a person I had only known for a week who I didn't even properly know yet. I couldn't understand how I felt the way I did when I saw him. I didn't know him, I still didn't properly know what he was involved in with Stella and Frank and the base. How could I love him so much? How could I miss him so much? How could I feel the urge to run up to him, crying from the fact that until then, I hadn't really, truly, properly processed that I might never see him again? For the first time in my life, I felt so very confused and alone. I had no one to talk to about him. I had no one to help me understand.

It was as I was debating this that Tom looked up at me and did a double take as he noticed that I was there. Or, more importantly, that I was stood still, looking at him almost sadly. Tom stood up with a smile on his face and I realized I was crying. As he walked faster towards me, his smile disappeared and he almost looked worried?

"Jess? Are… are you okay?" he asked hesitantly his hand reaching up to me.  
"Hmm? Yeah, I'm fine… just a little bit upset but other than that I am completely and irrevocably fine," I cried whilst hastily walking towards the classroom. Tom followed behind me.  
"Are you sure? You look a little… you're crying?" Tom asked awkwardly. He obviously wasn't used to seeing random people burst into tears around him. Thankfully, I had calmed down a little and was crying quietly by the time I sat on the floor outside the classroom.

"Yes I am. I'm probably just ill. How have you been? You weren't at school on Friday," I said casually as the tears died down, almost as abruptly as they came.  
"Well," Tom started as he sat down next to me, "On Friday I was… also ill like you are now so I should be apologising to you for infecting you with whatever disease I had on Thursday. Diseases can be transmitted before symptoms appear in the original person so…"

We sat quietly before I decided to say something.  
"At least you didn't die, for some reason I thought something awful had happened to you and I was kind of a little bit worried," I said quietly, trying as hard as I could to say I missed him without sounding like the insane lunatic I was. Tom looked away from me. He looked upset, perhaps a little angry. I tapped him on the shoulder taking him out of the trance he was in. When he looked back at me, his big, sarcastic smile had reappeared but he looked almost nervous.

"I'm glad I didn't die too. But, while I was ill, I wondered if I would die and I thought," he paused as if he was reconsidering what he was going to say before he shook it off and carried on, "There is a new film coming out, tomorrow, and I was going to go and see it on my own but I would like to ask if you would like to come see it with me?"

I tilted my head slightly to the right as a small smile came across my face. He looked at me very awkwardly as if he was scared I would say no. For the first time since I had met him, he seemed fragile, as if he could break at any moment.

"What kind of film is it?" I asked him, even thought I knew what my answer would be no matter what he said.  
"There is a book and game that has been turned into a film. It's called Blade Quest, you've probably never heard of it," Tom said while my eyes widened.  
"You play Blade Quest!" I asked him.  
"Yeah, you don't have to laugh at me for it," he said, obviously hurt by my tone of voice, "I know it's not as popular as it used to be and is quite nerdy but-" I stopped him by putting my hand over his lips.

"I wasn't laughing at you for it. I play Blade Quest too. In fact, it is my favourite game," I said calmly.  
"Really? Have you read the books?" he asked, his voice muffled as my hand was still covering his mouth.  
"Yeah, all thirty of them!" I nodded enthusiastically. I took my hand away from his face and immediately regretted it. The contact was nice.

"So… Do you want to come see the film with me?" he asked again.  
"Of course! Why wouldn't I want to come?" I laughed.  
"Well, you might not want to come with me if you were going with family or friends or… your boyfriend to see it," Tom said casually. I looked at him with a faint smile tugging at my lips.  
"My family wouldn't like Blade Quest, you are my only friend and I don't have a boyfriend," I replied, trying to ignore the small smile he adopted after I told him that I was boyfriendless.

He went on to talk about his favourite Blade Quest book and his Blade Quest avatar and I listened. However, while he was talking very eagerly, I was looking at his lips and I thought about how nice they were and how they moved when he spoke and how pleasant it would be to kiss him if he tried to kiss me…

My thoughts were gratefully interrupted when the bell rang. I woke from my trance and stood up, heading into the classroom after Tom. I sat next to him but he didn't stay for long. Almost the second we entered the classroom, Tom's pencil flashed red and he left, dragging his friends, who entered the room after me, with him.

When I got to PE, my second lesson, I found that Tom's friends Keri and Aneisha were there, a rarity as they were usually off doing something in the base. That wasn't the only strange thing. There was a group of women I had never seen before stood in a corner talking to Mrs King, the deputy head teacher. The women seemed to be nodding along with everything that Mrs King was saying.

Keri and Aneisha were looking around at the girls in the PE class, laughing and nodding, pointing at one girl before pointing at a woman in the corner of the room. I looked away as they pointed at me. I saw the woman they pointed at after me. She had short black hair tied up in a bun and looked very serious. She looked a lot like my mum, who looked nothing like me. I noticed some movement in Mrs King's corner of the room and looked up properly. The women, along with Mrs King, were walking over to my class.

"Right, class, today we decided to do something interesting in our lesson," Mrs King started, "We were offered a chance to participate in a self-defence class, provided free!"  
All of a sudden, the class all started to whisper. I could hear people complaining while others boasted about how easy it would be for them. Mrs King gestured for the women to move forward.

"These women are highly trained in… self-defence and are the perfect people to teach you all how to protect yourself against anyone who may attack you outside of school," Mrs King explained as the women grabbed a girl and took them over to a separate area of the room. The woman I had seen earlier came over to me and took me to the nearest corner.

"I will get out of your way so that you can learn from the best," Mrs King began to walk out of the room before adding, "The boys are doing the same thing as you in the other room."

The woman with black hair looked at me slightly disdainfully as she pushed me to stand on the middle of the mat on the floor.  
"This is so that when – I mean if you fall, you don't break your pretty little self," she said as she brought up her fists towards her face.  
"Isn't it a little dangerous to start now before you've taught me anything? For all you know, I could be so bad that you kill me with one hit," I said carefully, the woman still stood in fighting position.

"Well, you'll just have to be good then," she said before luging towards me. I ducked to the left at the last second and she went flying into the wall. She turned around with a smile on her face as she saw me raise my fists up and bend my knees slightly.

"I never said I was actually that bad, you know," I said to her with a smile. Slowly, she walked back onto the mat, mimicking the way I stood.  
"We still don't know if you aren't yet. You could just be lucky," the woman replied swiftly raising her leg to hit me in the gut. I twisted to the side, grabbing her leg and pulling, causing her to fall. Just before she hit the ground, she flipped backwards, narrowly missing my face. We both stood face to face before I sprang at her. She could see it coming and went to hit me, her fingers splayed. She was so predictable!

Before her hand made contact with my face, I ducked and rolled across the floor underneath her, kicking out my leg as I came up behind her. I heard my foot as it pushed her forward and I heard her as she turned to face my back. I also heard her as she jumped at me, so I turned with my leg in the air. She knew what I was going to do and pulled my leg like I had done to her earlier. I fell onto the ground face first. I winced as I felt all the air rush out of me.

As I turned onto my back, I watched as the woman turned her back to me and signalled something across the room. Silently, I got to my feet. The woman didn't notice I had moved. I didn't want to hurt her. I just wanted to show her what I could do. I wanted to show her that I could protect myself as that was the point of the lesson, wasn't it?

I hit the back of her leg at a point that I knew would cause a reaction. She doubled over and slipped onto the floor. I had managed to surprise her.  
"My name's Jess, what's yours?" I asked in a friendly tone. The woman turned and looked at me with an odd mix of scepticism and happiness.

"Angie," she said, her tone of voice softening. She reached out to me, asking me to help her up. I frowned.  
"If I help you up, you could pull me down. That would be silly of me in a self-defence class, wouldn't it" I said as sweetly as possible. Angie's smile widened as she got herself up. She sat down on the nearest bench and asked me to sit down. I looked at her doubtfully.

"Look, I'm tired. Just sit down," Angie said. I sat next to her slowly. I wouldn't let her surprise me. We sat in silence for a minute before she asked me a question.  
"Where did you learn all that?"  
"I used to take karate and my mum taught me self-defence. She used to take classes before I was born and she just loves protecting me," I answered. Angie looked at me with a smile.

"It's nice to be able to be protected," she said with a little sigh.  
"I'm sorry," I said. She looked at me questioningly.  
"Why are you sorry? What have you done?" Angie asked with a slight frown.  
"I didn't let you teach me anything," I replied as we looked at each other. She laughed and I tilted my head.

"It's not your fault that you're too good for me," Angie laughed. I looked around me at everyone in the room. No-one was doing very well and kept falling over or tripping over.  
"Wow. These lot are terrible!" Angie exclaimed as she pointed at the girls who fell over. I stared at her before she asked me what the matter was.

"Why are we really having this lesson?" I asked her. She looked at me with a surprised expression before she smiled again.  
"Yes. You will be perfect," she said with a big smile. Before I could ask her what she meant, she got up and walked away. I leant back and sighed. I noticed that Keri and Aneisha were looking at me closely. I suddenly felt very uncomfortable with them looking at me.

Everything was so very confusing…


	13. Chapter 13 - Help

Chapter 13: Help

At lunch, I decided to go outside and have a look around. I walked through the corridors until I got to the exit of the school. I stepped outside and looked around, searching for somewhere to sit. I saw a few benches that were full of people. I couldn't see a nearby bench that didn't have people sat on it.

It had been almost an hour since my self-defence 'lesson' and I hadn't seen Tom or his friends since. I saw Keri and Aneisha disappear after their pencils flashed red at the very end of PE. Without realizing, I found myself looking for Tom. I tried not to but I had already spotted him. He was sat under a tree quite far away from anyone facing away from me. I walked towards him. I could hear him talking to someone but there was no one around him.

"I just wanted to come outside. Even I need fresh air!" I heard him say before he paused. He listened to something before speaking again.  
"I won't get back in time. Send it to me now," he explained. I heard a muffled voice, as if someone was talking back to him.  
"Of course! Send it to my DS, I can work it from there," Tom said, fumbling around in his bag to get his DS out.

The screen turned on and showed what looked like a game. It looked like a black cube with different coloured wires was on his screen. In the top right corner there was a green timer counting down from one hundred and twenty. Tom looked at the screen puzzled.  
"I – I don't know how to do this! It can't be decoded, that will just set off the bomb and I'm pretty sure it isn't a code anyway. It's like a real bomb that needs to be diffused. I chose that moment to walk up to him, he looked like he needed help on a game. He was probably just talking to himself.

"Tom, are you okay?" I asked, sitting down next to him. He looked across to me in surprise.  
"Jess? Yeah, I'm fine. I just need a minute. I can't… beat this level in a game," he said, turning his head back to the screen and ignoring me.  
"Can I try? To beat the level, I mean," I asked as I desperately wanted to help him in some way.

He looked at me briefly and shook his head.  
"If you get it wrong then… I have to restart the entire game," he said carefully. He was holding the DS very loosely. I glanced at it before pulling it away from him. The timer was on fifty and counting down.  
"Hey! Jess, give that back!" he said very seriously.

I ignored him. The timer was on forty four. I looked at the bomb and the wires coming off of it. There were three coming out of each side of the bomb. On the left was red, blue and yellow and on the right was orange, purple and green. It was so simple! I knew how to diffuse the bomb!  
"Tom, you are so blind," I said, looking at him, "Let me do this. I know what to do!"

He looked at me nervously before nodding like he had no other choice. I smiled. The timer was on fifteen. I connected the red wire to the green, the blue to the orange and the yellow to the purple. The very second I connected the final wire, the timer stopped. Just in time, I thought as the timer stopped on two seconds remaining!

I turned to Tom with a triumphant smile. He looked at me in astonishment before grabbing me and pulling me into a hug. Electricity sparked through us as we touched and I wondered whether that bomb did go off in real life. Tom seemed to realize what he had done and pulled away.

"Sorry. How did you know what to do?" he asked as I mourned the contact that I missed.  
"Complimentary colours. Green and red, blue and orange, purple and yellow. They cancel each other out! I thought you were supposed to be smart!" I joked.  
"You're smarter," he said quietly as he pushed a stray hair out of my face. I gasped silently as he kept his hand on my face. Quickly, he took his hand away. Again, I immediately felt colder when he took his hand away.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw his pencil begin to flash. Tom got up and began to walk away.  
"What can't you do? You're good at PE, maths, IT? What can't you do?" he asked me. I smiled sadly.

"I'm not very good at making friends."


	14. Chapter 14 - Good or Bad?

Chapter 14: Good or Bad?

It has been an eventful day, I thought as I walked home. I had done so much in the space of six school hours. I had so much to look forward to. For starters, Tom had invited me to go see the new Blade Quest film with him! I finally felt like a normal teenager, going out with friends, going to school. It was such a shame that I wasn't normal. I was far from it. I was going down into secret bases and watching people through my cameras…

I had forgotten about my cameras down in the base until then. When I got home, I grabbed an apple from the kitchen and went upstairs. Mum wasn't back yet. She was probably still at work. I turned on my laptop and went onto the camera program.

The cameras I had put in the base, I could only watch through on a live feed, meaning that I would miss anything that happened in the day so I had to hope that something was going on when I looked on my laptop.

Strangely enough, when I brought up the video, Frank, Stella, Tom and his friends were still there. Tom was sat at the desk I had seen with the amazing computer while his friends leant on the big round table in the very centre of the room. Frank and Stella stood in front of the desk looking at the group seriously.

"Are you sure?" I heard Frank mumble, asking the whole group. My cameras couldn't pick up audio very well so everything sounded like a mumble to me. Tom turned in his chair and looked at everyone. He looked so serious, it was odd. He looked like he was going to speak but Aneisha started before he could.

"Yes," she nodded along with Keri, "Did you see her in training?"  
"She was so good! Not as good as me of course…" Keri laughed jokingly.  
"Keri, this is serious," Stella snapped, immediately shutting Keri up. Keri looked down holding back giggles.

"I know Stella. Really though, she was good, I think she'd do well here!" Keri added while Aneisha nodded.  
"I don't trust her," Dan said, finally speaking up. Everyone looked at him as he leant back on a table behind him with his arms crossed.

"Dan, you don't trust anyone. Besides, you don't even know her," Aneisha sighed. Dan stood up and propped himself on the round table.  
"Neither do you. What makes you think we can trust her, or anyone! Why do we need a fifth member? We are fine as we are," he argued, turning away from the girls smugly.

"He is right. None of you know her. How do you know you can trust her?" Stella asked. The girls looked shy, almost.  
"Actually, that isn't strictly true," Aneisha pointed out, looking at Tom deliberately, "Tom knows her quite well."

Tom looked oblivious to what was going on as all eyes, including mine, turned to him.  
"Tom," Aneisha said carefully, "Can we trust her?"  
Tom seemed to pause for a second, deliberating his options before nodding decisively.  
"Yes, we can trust her," Tom said.  
"I think someone has a crush!" Keri said, laughing a little under her breath. Tom blushed a little.

"Alright then," Frank said, everyone turning towards the glass whiteboard I had so carelessly regarded when I broke into the base.  
"It seems we have found our newest member," Frank finished as a picture of a girl appeared on the screen.

The girl had soft features and pink lips that curved into a smile. Cascading down her shoulders was light brown hair. Her eyes were the lightest shade of blue possible, making them almost white and her skin was clear. She was leaning against her hand, posing for her photo, and was wearing a white dress.

It took me a second before I realized that the girl on the picture was me! I gasped in shock. I remembered having it taken in the holidays. My mum wanted me to have a professional picture taken so that she could have a non-school photograph that looked good in her room. I had never actually looked at the photo. I had never wanted too.

Hold on, I thought, why do they have a picture of me on the screen? I held my breath as the group down in the base left. I turned off the laptop, bringing my hand up to my face and just holding it. They had been talking about me, whether they could trust me! I was completely trust-able!

I laughed to myself. I had just been spying on them, how could I be trusted? No, I thought, I am trustworthy, I'm just trustworthy and curious. Besides, I added to myself, I hadn't told anyone about the base. I didn't even know what the base was used for… But I was going to find out.

I decided to look at Tom's file on my camera. It was the only thing I hadn't done yet that could give me the answers I needed. I plugged my camera into my laptop and transferred the pictures onto it. I put the images onto a slideshow and clicked onto the first one. It was the front of the file. It had Tom's picture in one corner with his name next to it.

Fervently, I clicked onto the next picture of the file… to find a performance report from MI9! MI9 as in MI9! A performance report from MI9? That meant that he had performance that MI9 needed to report! Clicking through the rest of the images, I found more performance reports, reviews, skill checks, skill lists!

Was Tom part of MI9 or was he a criminal? Were his friends fugitives or agents? Was Stella, chief agent of MI9, a leader or traitor? I hoped with all of my heart that Tom was MI9 but MI9? That seemed crazy that teens would work for MI9, what would they even do? What could they do for MI9 as teenagers in a school?

Then I remembered all the times they left to go down to the base and the black outfits I had seen them in and the bomb I helped Tom diffuse on his DS, the bomb that I thought was a game. Tom and his friends had to work for MI9! So… why was my picture on the whiteboard? I couldn't think why.

My brain had hit a wall. Out of all the things I could think of or do, why didn't I know what was going on, ever. It was probably so obvious but I couldn't see the answer. At least, I thought to myself, I know now what Tom and his friends are part of. MI9!

**I hope you liked this chapter! I know it's getting a little boring but I can promise that the next chapter is when things get interesting...**

**Chapter 15: Explosions**


	15. Chapter 15 - Explosions

Chapter 15: Explosions

**(Unknown POV)**

She stood outside the school with a smirk on her face. She brought her watch up to her face repeatedly until, on her fifth watch check, her smile turned into a grin that morphed into an uncontrolled giggle.

Dressed all in black, the woman stood outside the school, ready for her moment. She knew that there was the risk that she might hurt her, but she was doing it all for her. It was the woman's moment and she knew it. It was the moment when all of those years of planning and training finally were worth it.

She threw a black box into the air and caught it in the other hand. She took a second to think about all she had done to be able to do this, all the research, the training and the planning for all those years.

Yes my time has come, she thought, Morte will never die! The woman laughed psychotically, before bringing her hand down and pressing the button. All she had to do was throw it before the ten seconds were up. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, throw…

Yes, she thought, time to get my revenge!

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**(Jess POV: Ten minutes earlier)**

Lunch break was nearly over. I sat on a bench inside the school on my own, right near the base but far enough away. It was the only empty seat in the halls, everywhere was so crowded. I observed the people around me silently, curious about what other people did at lunch. I sat alone, reading or eating or…

I stopped in my thought as the bell rang, signalling that I should go to class. I got up with a little sigh and was walking to my room when a pair of hands grabbed me from behind and pulled me back. It surprised me, so I did nothing to stop whoever was pulling me towards the base. When they let go, I turned to see Tom and his friends stood behind me, all smiling except for Dan. He didn't trust me.

"Umm, class is this way you know?" I said, pointing back to the way I had come. Keri laughed a little before Aneisha poked her in the side.  
"Yeah, we know, we just wanted to talk to you!" Aneisha said carefully with a smile. I tried to smile back but I was still very annoyed. I was never late to class and I didn't want to start.

"What about?" I replied cautiously. They all stood slightly awkwardly, as if no one knew what to say.  
"Tom, you tell her," Dan instructed with a scowl. He really didn't like me!  
"Why me?" Tom asked with a sigh.  
"So… Jess, do you know how we always seem to ditch class?" Tom started. I nodded a bit.  
"Yeah, I've… never really thought anything of it," I lied.

"Well, when we leave class we come here and… Neish, you carry on, this is weird," Tom said. Aneisha groaned and pulled the group off into a corner. I heard them whispering about something but I could only catch parts of it.

"I know, but we've never done this before," I heard Tom say.  
"Always just been us four!" I heard Keri whisper.  
"She won't believe us," I heard Dan say.  
"We have to do this," I heard Aneisha finish as they all turned to me.

"Jess, I know you won't believe this but…" Tom began. He stopped when we heard the ticking of a clock coming from somewhere. We all turned to get a better look. Tom's eyes widened and tried to tell us something as the wall exploded, and a piece of brick flew into my face, causing me to fall to the ground. I saw stars and could only hear a ringing in my ears. I heard muffled screams and felt someone come over to me and shake my arm.

The person quietened before passing out next to me. I couldn't see anyone else and could only feel warmth trickling down my face from where the brick hit me. No-one was screaming. Tom, Keri, Aneisha, Dan and I were all on the floor and everyone was unconscious but me.

The last thing I saw before the darkness completely covered my vision and my brain shut down was a woman climbing in through the hole that had formed on the wall. I watched as she walked towards the janitor's closet and laughed. She opened the door easily and pulled the broom handle. I realized that I knew the woman. I knew her name. Her name was…


	16. Chapter 16 - Escape

Chapter 16: Escape

I woke up with a quiet ringing in my ears and a gap in my memory. I couldn't remember something. I remember a feeling of finding something out. I recognised someone? But who did I recognise? I couldn't remember who I had seen, but I remembered that they had blown a hole in the wall and then climbed through it.

I suddenly became very aware of my surroundings. I was in a small, dark room, with spider webs in the corners and a single bed at the back. It was a cell! I could hear that there was other people with me.  
"Where are we?" I heard someone whisper, it sounded like Dan.

"Morte's prison cells," Tom whispered disdainfully.  
"How do you know?" Aneisha said quietly.  
"I was here, remember?" Tom said.  
"Shhh," Aneisha whispered, looking over at me as I pretended to sleep, "She might wake up!"

The group looked at me and I realized that they weren't on their own. Frank and Stella were with them, hunched in the corner, talking quietly and seriously. At hearing Aneisha's comment about me, they got up and sat down with the group. Slowly, I opened my eyes fully, to see that they were all sat facing away from me, speaking in hushed tones that even I, with my excellent hearing, couldn't hear.

I looked around the cell for a way to get out. I wasn't going to stay in there any longer than I had to. There were no windows in the cell, nor any other ways of escape other that the door. The door was made of black, iron bars. It was locked with two padlocks, some chain and a space for a key. Childs play, I thought smugly.

I turned and got up quietly, trying not to disturb the group.  
"Jess? You're awake," I heard Tom say from behind me. I put on the most confused face I could muster before turning to him, my eyes wide and innocent.  
"Tom, where are we?" I asked.  
"Well," Tom started, looking at his friends before answering.  
"I don't know. But, just sit tight, the police will get here soon, I hope," Tom said slowly. I nodded and he sat back down with his friends, still facing away from me.

I stayed stood up but pressed my body closer to the locks. They wouldn't be able to see me as I unlocked them. I started off by pulling a hair grip from out of my hair and pulling the first padlock closer to me. I used the grip to manoeuvre the spring in the lock to the side. This unlocked the padlock! I did the same with the other one.

After this, I carefully and silently pulled the chain from the bars, as they had come away from the bars after I unlocked the padlocks, and slid them into my pocket. They were too heavy so, without bringing any attention to myself, I placed them in the corner of the room, with the spider webs. I then moved on to the key lock. It was the one that would take the most time.

I strained my ears to hear if anyone was outside of the cell but I couldn't hear if anyone was nearby. I frowned. Morte had gone to all the trouble of kidnapping us, but didn't put guards outside the cell? That seemed like a really stupid thing to do… I smiled as the door unlocked. I had just broken out of a prison cell! I turned to Tom and his friends with a smile. I cleared my throat and they all turned to look at me.

"As much as I love being in this prison cell, I would very much like to not be in a prison cell so, if you are all ready to go, shall we leave?" I said with a smile, pushing the door open at the end of my little, little speech. They looked at me and the door with their eyes wide.

"Come on! Do you really want to be in here?" I said desperately. I really wanted to get out of the prison cell, I didn't like spider webs or their spiders. No-one moved so I sighed and left. I ran down the dark corridor quietly, turning my head down the first turn to see if anyone was around. I saw one guard, dressed all in black and quickly ducked my head back.

He was facing away from me so I snuck up behind him and hit him in the small of his neck while kicking him in the leg. He fell forward so I brought up my knee and kneed him in the head. I grabbed a book from the shelf near me and hit him hard on the head. He was unconscious, hopefully. I turned to see another guard run down the hallway.

I stood in fighting position as he walked closer towards me. He went to punch but I crouched forward, hitting him in the stomach. The guard doubled over in pain and I grimaced. I didn't want to hurt him, I just wanted to escape! I kicked him forward and fell face first onto the hard, concrete floor. He stayed still and I hoped he wasn't dead.

No-one else came down the corridor so I began to walk back to the cell. On my way, I bumped into Tom and his friends.  
"There you are!" Tom said, relieved. I smiled and motioned back to the corridor I had come from.  
"I think the exit is this way but I can't be sure. Shall we go before more guards come?" I said as calmly as possible.  
"More guards?" I heard Frank ask from the back of the group. I winced and showed them the two I had fought.

"Oh," Frank said, checking for the guards pulses. When he found them, he nodded and carried on walking forward.  
"Hang on a minute," I said. Everyone stopped and turned to looked at me.  
"I'm going to go this way, just in case the exit is this way. If you find the exit, come back here but if I find it, I'll wait here for you all to come back. Is that okay?" I asked.  
"What if more guards come?" Tom enquired worriedly. I smiled and told him I'd be fine. Before anyone could say no, I ran the other way, stopping at the first turn I saw. I heard Frank, Stella, Tom and his friends run the other way.

I didn't tell them the truth. I didn't tell them that I was going to find out why we were taken here. They wouldn't let me if I had said that. Besides, if I told them the truth, I would probably have to explain how I knew about Morte and Grimmera and MI9…

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**Sorry that the chapters are so short! I just really want specific parts in specific areas and I thought that I could at least make this bit so that there was something else today. You find out who the woman was in the next chapter so, start guessing who you think it is, I can't wait to see who gets it right! I'll probably update tomorrow.**


	17. Chapter 17 - The Woman in Black

**I just wrote this and I just couldn't help but add it! I hope you like it!**

Chapter 17: The Woman in Black

I saw a door with the words 'Grimmera's Office' on it. I breathed in and walked into the room. The room was massive and the walls were black and white. A big white light shone from out of the ceiling, bouncing light off of the shiny walls. In the middle of the room was a big round table, similar to the one in the base but bigger.

There was steps leading up to the front of the room and on the stage at the front was a desk and throne. A woman sat at the desk with her legs crossed. She smiled widely as I walked into the room.  
"I thought you'd never get here," she laughed hysterically. I remembered her.

She was the woman I had seen climb through the wall and go to the base, she was the woman who threw the bomb at the school, she was the woman who had trapped us here in her prison. I knew her. I remembered that I had recognised her earlier, back before I lost consciousness. I knew her and she was Grimmera. I looked at her as she stepped out from her desk and walked towards me. She was dressed all in black.

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"You've always had a knack for surprising me. Hello," I said with a small sigh and a small smile.  
"Mother."


	18. Chapter 18 - Family History

Chapter 18: Family History

I looked at my mother sadly.  
"So… you're the one who blew a hole in my school wall. And you're also Grimmera," I started slowly. My mother smiled at me and laughed.  
"Yes! I threw a bomb at a wall and the wall exploded. Oh and sorry about the brick, it wasn't meant to hit you in the face," my mum said with a bright smile.

"I just don't really understand why you've done this. Why have you locked me up in a prison cell? How are you Grimmera, she should be dead?" I asked loudly, beginning to feel little angry. She looked at me with another smile.  
"Ask me the real question, what's really bothering you? You can ask me, I am your mother after all," she said, leaning over the table with a concerned face.

"Why did you imprison Tom and his friends? How do you even know who Tom is?" I said quietly. My mum's concerned expression vanished and was replaced with a sad one. She sighed loudly.  
"My goodness, you can be very stupid sometimes, darling," she smiled, "I thought it was obvious!" She looked at me again with fake concern and doubt.  
"I try to be a good mother but you are so delightfully oblivious to some things that I feel I haven't been a very good one. I try to help you but you still can't see it, can you?" she continued dramatically.

"I try so hard…" she muttered, rolling around the table. I moved away from her slowly as she began to edge towards me.  
"How did you know about Tom?" I asked again through gritted teeth. My mother stopped moving and her smile disappeared.  
"You do not speak to your mother like that. Have I taught you nothing?" she yelled sternly. Despite myself, I lowered my head in shame. I felt awful for having spoken to her like that. She was my mother… All of a sudden, she laughed.

"Oh I am funny. Have I taught you nothing, as if!" she cried through tears of amusement. I looked at her, almost in tears myself, but not from happiness.  
"I have taught you everything," she finished. She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes as she looked at me.  
"I suppose," she sighed slowly, "That you still want to know how I know about Tom."

I nodded carefully as she stepped closer to me. My mother laughed hysterically at me. I realized she was very close to me. I tried to back away from her but she slapped me in the face and I fell to the ground. It was like she hadn't moved when I looked at her, like she hadn't hit me in the face. She was still laughing with a crazed smile. She was insane! As I got up, she began to talk again.

"I shall start at the beginning. I have always loved a good story! Anyway, my mother was a lovely lady. She looked a lot like me, you know. She gave birth to me when she was about sixteen so her mother kicked her out of her own home. My dad abandoned us and we were very poor for quite a while. Often, I didn't even get a meal during the day! We were homeless and we were starving and we weren't very happy. When I was about three, my mother began to steal for our food and clothes. We brought a home with some money she stole. She told me that we were immortal. For a while, this was all she did, but she got a taste for stealing, you see.

"She joined a group of criminals called 'Morte' in 1946 and began to help make their group better. They eventually made her their leader and they stole bigger things and they killed and everything! In 1959, after eight years of her working for Morte, I celebrated my nineteenth birthday with her. It all went downhill from there.

"MI9 had started to track us down. They found us in one of our warehouses and they went through the whole building. There was no-where for mother to run so sent me away. She said she would die happy knowing I was safe. As I left the building in tears, I heard a gunshot followed by my mother's scream. I found out who did it about eighteen years ago.

"The last present I got from my mother before she died was a formula for a chemical that when absorbed into the bloodstream, could stop me from ageing. When I was thirty, I finally finished it and got what my mother wanted me to have. My life, forever! I vowed to carry on what my mother had started but first, I needed revenge, to comfort myself, really. It took me thirty seven years to find out who killed my mother, by then I was about fifty six with the looks of a thirty year old.

"The woman who killed my mother died a year before I had found out that it was her who killed her, but the woman had gave birth to a child, who had gave birth to another child. The woman that killed my mother is called Stella Knight, and I believe that you have heard of her. I killed Stella's mother but I lost track of Stella. She had the protection of MI9 and by then, I wanted a plan so genius that she died confused!

"Jess, there is a man called the mastermind and he created clones of himself so that he could carry on his work. He failed, obviously. He started creating clones about a year before you were born and it gave me an idea. I knew he would fail as his mind was too strong and his clones would have the same strong will. However, I thought his use of others was very good indeed.

"I realized that I could find Stella Knight and destroy everything she loves, without even lifting a finger! So I decided to have a baby that I could mould into an exact copy of me, but improved. I trained that child so that she was smart and athletic and beautiful. When an employee of mine informed me about Stella's line of work, I decided to move the child to a school near the place that Stella worked but I got very lucky and the child found Stella for me, as it turned out that she worked as a spy in the school!

"Jess, if you couldn't tell already, you are that child and I am very proud of you. You found Stella Knight for me and placed cameras near the base, letting me know where the base was! I couldn't have done a better job myself. Oh, I know about the cameras because I check your laptop when you go to school, and I found the video files. And know, I have Stella locked up!" my mother finished as I looked at her with a horrified expression.

I could feel tears threatening to come but I pushed the urge to just sit in a corner and cry as far back as I could. Looking at my mother bravely, I began to speak but she tilted her head and nodded.  
"Right, we have Tom and his friends and Stella and Frank back in a more secure prison cell and, Jess, you have two choices. You can stay with me and abandon your friend or you could go back to your cold, dark cell and stay with them," she said to me with an insane smile.

"No! I will not stay with you. What you're doing is wrong! You don't need revenge," I said softly but my mother just looked at me disgustedly.  
"Guards, take her away!" she screamed as I was pulled away and taken back down the corridors to a new cell.

I was seconds away from tears and needed to sit down. My legs felt like they were made of lead. The guards threw me into a clean, white cell. I guess my mum doesn't entirely hate me, I thought as the guards pushed me into the cell.

Tom and his friends sat in a corner whispering but looked up as I walked into the cell. Concern flashed across Tom's face and he got up, walking over to me. I felt sick and curled up in the far corner on my own. The tears I had been holding back came streaming down my face and I shook in melancholy.

I had done this to Tom and his friends. I was the one who led my mother to the base. I was the one that would be responsible for Stella's death and possibly Tom's, if my mother got bored and wanted someone to kill. It was my fault that we were trapped in a cell in my mother's own prison. I didn't want to hurt people, but that it was I had done by finding the base.

I recoiled as someone touched my shoulder. I looked up from my legs to find that Tom was sat next to me.  
"Umm, hi," he said carefully as I continued to cry, "What happened?"  
I looked down again at my legs in shame. I didn't know what to say to him, I could only think of three words that could sum up all the guilt I felt at what I had done.

"I'm so sorry,"


	19. Chapter 19 - The Truth

Chapter 19: The Truth

We had been there for about two hours. Maybe more. Time didn't seem to be moving the same way as it did when I wasn't in a prison cell. I cried for maybe ninety per cent of the time I was there for the first two hours. Tom gave up asking if I was okay about half an hour into the time there. He spent another half hour speculating about my apology with Aneisha, Keri and Dan while I sat huddled in a corner.

Imagine if you were told that your entire life was a lie, that every choice you had ever made, every club you had ever joined, every friend you had made was chosen for you by someone else, and was all someone else's idea. Imagine that you had no free choice, no control over your own life and were put in a literal prison by someone you had thought you loved and loved you back.

"Stella! Nice to see you again," I heard a woman say from the corridor. The metal door opened to reveal my mother, dressed in a black skirt and jacket. She had straightened her black hair and coloured it to be my colour. Without her curly black hair, she looked very much like me, and that was probably the desired effect. I hunched further into my little corner.

"Gosh, I haven't seen you since, when was it?" she added with a sneaky little smile that reminded me of the smile I had used in the picture of me I saw in the base. I noticed Tom look between me and my mother with widened eyes.

"Well, I think it was when you killed my mother," Stella said dryly.

"She killed your mother!" Frank exclaimed while everyone but me gasped. Tom noticed this as well.

"Yes, I did. I remember your face as I killed her. You were very scared, you hid under the bed, didn't you? That's why I couldn't find you," mum added with a laugh and smile. Her laugh sounded like mine as well. I hid even further into my corner. Stella shifted uncomfortably.

"I've grown up since then," Stella said sternly. My mother's expression changed from calm to anger. She moved from the door to Stella and hit her in the face, like she had done to me earlier. I could still feel the pain on my face as I touched it. There was probably a mark. As I touched my face, I saw Tom look at me.

"You do not speak to me like that, is that clear?" my mother screamed, causing me to shed another tear and back even further into my corner. She could be very threatening when she wanted to be and very kind other times. She didn't just have two faces, she had one hundred.

"Apologise!" she shrieked. Stella cowered, probably reliving the memory of her mother's death.

My mother hit Stella again and the contact drew blood on her face. I noted that my mum was wearing a sharp ring. Frank went to get up to hit my mum but Dan and Aneisha held him back.

"I'm sorry," Stella whispered quietly. My mother smiled.

"Why are you doing this?" I heard Keri ask from the floor.

"Why, I'm glad you ask. I am doing this all for her," my mum answered pointing at me before leaving. I could feel everyone looking at me.

"What did she mean, Jess?" Aneisha asked. I didn't answer. I just sobbed a little harder.

"Jess? What is going on?" Keri asked me. I sighed and looked up and they noticed, they properly noticed my hair and eyes and the mark on my face from where my mother hit me.

"Tom's figured it out," I cried looking at Tom, who nodded slowly, his smile very much gone. Everyone stood up and looked at me while Tom answered.

"Jess, is… Grimmera your mother?" Tom asked gently. I got up and nodded, wiping away some of my tears.

"Yeah and I'm sorry," I said carefully. Everyone adopted a look of wariness. Only Tom still looked the same.

"Why are you sorry?" Tom asked me. I sighed, realizing that it was finally time to tell them the truth. I looked at Tom's look of calmness and wondered what he would look like when he wanted to kill me.

"Because this is all my fault," I explained with a sad little smile. They all looked at me with confused faces. I sat down and they all sat in front of me as I explained what had been going on for a little over a week. I watched anger flash across Dan's face, confusion across Keri's, understanding across Aneisha's and betrayal across Tom's. When I got to the part where I broke into the base and found Tom's file, Tom stood up and sat in the opposite corner. I felt a pang of sadness as he looked at me with such hate. As I finished, I decided to throw in an apology.

"Every choice I have ever made has been made by someone else for me. And, if it's worth anything at all, I am so sorry for all I have done," I finished looking expectantly at Tom. He scowled before speaking.

"Dan was right to not trust you," he said before turning away. I felt a tear roll down my cheek but I brushed it away before anyone could see it.

I backed back into my corner and tried to hold myself together. I was struggling to keep sane. Keri, Aneisha and Dan moved away from me and talked with Frank, who was trying to stop Stella's face from bleeding. I could hear everything they were saying.

"You have to say though, it is quite impressive what she did. She managed to break into the base and evade me and Stella," Frank said calmly.

"She is the one who put us here, Frank!" Stella argued.

"Yeah and we still don't know if she's working for Grimmera or not. She could be lying about how she didn't mean for us to be here," Dan pointed out but Keri frowned at him.

"I don't think she's lying. I honestly believe that she was just curious. It's not her fault that her mother is Grimmera," Keri said.

"No, Keri, we can't believe her. She's probably going to kill us herself when she gets the chance," Dan said. Keri went to argue with him but Frank cut her off.

"Team, now is not the time to argue," Frank insisted.

"Sorry Frank. But they are right in arguing. We don't know if we can trust her yet," Aneisha said, looking over to me.


	20. Chapter 20 - Tom's POV: Betrayal

Chapter 20: Tom's POV – Betrayal

I couldn't believe she had done it. She was the reason we were here. She was the reason that her mother was going to kill us. How had I trusted her?

Why even then, when we were trapped in her cell, did I feel the urge to walk over to her, hold her in my arms and brush her tears away? I had only known her for a week and she spent that week sneaking around and lying to me so why did I still love her, why did I even love her in the first place? Was it even love? I couldn't believe that the thing I felt most disappointed about as I sat in the cell, was that I had missed the premier of Blade Quest, I had missed me and Jess' date.

I allowed myself to look at Jess from where I sat in the cell. She was hunched over like me and was shaking from crying. I felt a pang of guilt as I watched her. I could have gone over to her and comforted her but I didn't. I just sat and watched. I could hear Keri and Dan arguing.  
"Sorry Frank. But they are right in arguing. We don't know if we can trust her yet," Aneisha said quietly, looking over at Jess. They carried on arguing quietly but I didn't notice as I was still watching Jess.

All of a sudden, Jess stopped crying. It was like someone had flicked a switch on her tears. She stopped hunching over and sat straight, her face covered by a veil of her own hair. Carefully, she brushed her hair away, revealing her face. She looked very pale, as if all of the blood was drained from her but she was still beautiful. I held in a breath as I looked at her. She wasn't smiling and she looked determined.

She closed her eyes and sighed a little sigh before getting up shakily. She turned to me and mouthed the words, 'I'm sorry,' before knocking on the big, heavy cell door. A little window opened and she smiled a smile that mimicked her mother's from earlier.  
"Hi. My mother will be expecting me soon and she told me that you should open this door for me and take me down to her office. Quickly!" Jess said brightly. The guard nodded and began fumbling with his keys.

By then, every eye had turned to her so she turned to us with a very crazy smile.  
"You were right. You can't trust me. I've been working for my mother the entire time!" she said with a happy laugh. I got up but Aneisha pulled me back down. For a second, I saw guilt flash across Jess' face but she quickly suppressed it.

The guard opened the door and let her walk through before shutting it, leaving us trapped in a cell, waiting for death. I held back tears as I watched her walk down the corridor.  
"I knew we couldn't trust her! She was working for Grimmera the whole time," Dan exclaimed with an arrogant smile.  
"Shut up, Dan!" I whispered calmly.

He was right, though. Jess had betrayed us.


	21. Chapter 21 - Guard's POV: The Child

Chapter 21: Guards POV – The Child

They stood opposite each other with wary smiles. The child had hugged her mother when she entered the room but they hadn't spoken since. Grimmera had told me to bring down the child when she 'came to her senses,' so I had done as I was told when the girl was ready.

"I'm guessing you have changed your mind," Grimmera said with a smug smile.  
"You guess correctly," the child agreed.  
"What changed your mind?" Grimmera asked. The child shifted uncomfortably from where she stood.  
"I didn't like the cell."  
"That's not the only reason."  
"Fine. They… they don't trust me! There is no reason to stay with them in the prison if they don't even care about me," the child exclaimed. Grimmera smiled. This was her plan all along.

"Oh darling! I'm so sorry, why don't they trust you?" Grimmera asked sadly.  
"Because… It doesn't matter. I'm here now to help you. After all, you are my mother!"  
"Yes, and you are my daughter. Remember, I am doing all of this for you, sweetheart."  
"Which reminds me, what are you planning to do?" the girl asked with a frown.  
"Oh, well, first I will destroy everything that Stella loves, including that idiot, Frank and then I will ruin her precious MI9 and then, when she has nothing left, she will die!" Grimmera said brightly.

"Why don't we let her live?" the child asked, causing Grimmera to frown.  
"Think about it! If we ruin her life, won't it be more painful for her to live without Frank, the team or MI9 that to die," the child continued. Grimmera paused for a minute, taking in the option.  
"That," Grimmera began, "Is actually a very good idea! Well done, Jess!"

"So, what do we do first?"  
"We will torture Stella for a bit and then, maybe, feed our guests. I feel like fried Frank will be on the menu today served with some freshly mashed Stella!" Grimmera said with a smile and laugh as she walked away, probably to get her torture equipment to show her daughter.

I saw a flash of horror rush across the child's face before it went away, replaced by a placid expression. I didn't know if I could trust the girl but she would have to be a pretty good actress to be calm after such a thing was said. Even I, a servant to Grimmera and to death, wasn't entirely pleased with the whole idea of torture. I didn't agree with Grimmera's original plan of killing Stella, either, as Morte taught us that death is a gift only bestowed upon those who deserve it, and Stella did not deserve death.

I decided to ignore the distrust I felt towards the child, after all, when Grimmera ultimately dies, the child would be the new Grimmera and I would have to trust her then…  
When the child's mother came out from the room, she gestured for her daughter to sit in the plush chairs she had near her desk before switching on the high-tech TV she had fixed on the nearest wall. The news channel immediately appeared onto the screen.

"And here, we have the shocking images of the destruction of shops, supermarkets and even government buildings," the blonde news reporter said calmly as pictures of burning buildings and smashed up glass windows were showed, "It seems only churches have been left untouched and are slowly becoming the only safe places to be."  
"A warning," she continued with a sombre expression, "Stay away from any public places, and stay locked indoors. If an area near you has been destroyed recently, go to the nearest church, it is the only way to avoid the carnage and destruction that is facing our country."

The reporter's voice faded out as Grimmera turned down the volume. She placed a plate of neatly arranged biscuits on the desk and smiled at her daughter from where she sat.  
"Don't you just love churches? I've never been religious but I thought it was fair to spare them, you know. People need somewhere to pray during the apocalypse," Grimmera smiled while the child looked at her, dumbfounded.

"You started that?" the child asked. Grimmera laughed, taking a biscuit from the plate.  
"Why of course! You didn't think Stella was my only target, did you?" she asked.  
"Oh no, Stella Knight's family wronged me, but Morte soldiers, servants and devotees have been wronged by many others. I'm not selfish, I will not get my revenge while my own people get none at all. My revenge is Stella, but Morte's revenge involves the entire world!" Grimmera explained with a contented smile.

"Isn't that a little… crazy?" the child asked. Grimmera's happiness faded and she laughed coldly.  
"Crazy? Crazy? How is my plan crazy?" Grimmera asked quietly with just the right mix of serenity and malevolence in her voice.  
"All I want, all Morte wants, is a world without the people who have done wrong. We want to purge the world of evil," Grimmera sternly carried on. All of a sudden, her face broke into a big smile, as if she was holding back a laugh. Sometimes it scared me that Grimmera could so quickly change from mood to mood, she truly was mad!

That was why we trusted her and followed her like she was our God. All the best, most influential people are crazy. She was a good leader, despite the fact that she was a little insane. Although, with a hundred different emotions constantly clashing to get her full attention, constantly screaming at each other to be heard, no wonder she was so crazy…

"Okay. I can understand that. So, what is next? You've sent the world into madness and captured Stella Knight, where do you go from here?" the child asked slowly, with her own curious little smile. I could see the resemblance between the child and Grimmera when they sat opposite each other and smiled.

"Ah, see next is the fun part…" Grimmera answered with a secretive smile.


	22. Chapter 22 - Stella's POV: Joy

Chapter 22: Stella POV – World's Best Mummy

We sat silently in the cell, each one of us determined not to speak first. The tension in the air was truly cut-able. Frank and I sat in the furthest corner from the door, Frank doctoring my wound again, while Dan, Aneisha and Keri sat near us. Since Jess had revealed herself as a traitor, Tom had moved away from us and was rocking back and forth slightly.

I felt a pang of sadness as I looked at the team, as I knew that it wasn't just Jess' fault we were there, it was also mine. If I wasn't Stella Knight, they would all be safe, Frank would be safe. It was because of me and the grudge that Grimmera held against me that had brought us all here. However, we were strong and would find some way to get out so there was no real reason for me to lose my sanity over something I had no control over; my family. I cared about the team very much, almost like they were my new family, after my mother and any other relative of mine was killed by Grimmera.

I sat closer to Frank almost by instinct and suddenly felt a lot better. It was times like this, if I ignored the pain in my cheek and the prison around us, that I wondered why I had ever ended things with Frank. Was it MI9? Was it Frank? Was it me?

"Stella," Frank looked at me, "If we never get out of here, I just want you to know…"  
"Yes Frank?" I asked hopefully.  
"That I," Frank was interrupted as the door to the cell opened to reveal Jess standing there with keys in her hand.

We all stood up, Except for Tom who couldn't see who stood behind the door, ready to run or fight but Jess simply walked in, followed by a guard. She stayed hidden from Tom but let the guard walk further in. Jess blocked the door but getting past a little girl wouldn't be hard, even if she had been very excellent fighting against Angie. The guard would be harder to take down but, if we fought as a team, I knew we could do it.

Almost reading my mind, Jess looked at me peacefully, shaking her head.  
"I don't want a fight, I'm just here to take Stella down to see mother," Jess spoke stepping forward from the door. I could hear Tom tense as he heard her voice but what surprised me was the reaction that gave Jess. Upon seeing Tom flinch, Jess' serene expression lapsed into pain, disappearing so fast that the untrained eye wouldn't catch it.

I inclined my head and stood straight.  
"What does Grimmera want with me?" I asked calmly, not wanting to show any fear. Jess smiled sadly before stepping back. She indicated for me to come with her. Hesitantly, I walked forward but Frank pulled me back by the wrist.

"Don't go, we can leave, we can fight our way out," Frank whispered desperately but I shook my head.  
"No, Frank. She might spare you all if I give myself up," I replied with all the strength I had. I realized that this might have been the last time I saw him. I knew Grimmera's ways and I knew she wouldn't let me live. I held onto the hope that after I died, she would let my team, my real family, live.

Frank let go of me with a inaudible sigh and I carried on walking, following Jess down the corridor. I noticed that there wasn't any security or any guards. They were expecting me to make my move and try to escape. That was exactly why I didn't try.

"She won't kill you, I'll make sure she doesn't," Jess whispered to me. I frowned and turned to look at her to see her wearing a pained expression.  
"I don't understand with you. You tried to escape with us but then you were brought back to the new cell. You cried so genuinely that I was sure… that you weren't a traitor. Why did you choose that moment to reveal yourself as a traitor? Why not wait?" I asked her slowly with a curious frown.

Jess stopped walking for a moment and turned to look at me. She seemed to sigh before breaking into a smirk. She grabbed my wrist and twisted it down, pushing me to the floor in pain.  
"You will not speak to me like that, is that clear?" she said evenly, her voice free of any emotion. I cried out a little in pain.

It shocked me that such a dainty little hand could cause such pain but I tried to ignore it. When Jess let go, I looked at her properly. She was shorter than me, obviously, and her face was clear and emotionless. However, when I looked closer, her eyes were full of remorse, as if they were the only parts of her that were still herself. It was like she had been possessed by Grimmera but there was still some part of her that was aware, that knew that what she was doing should make her feel guilty. For the first time since she had announced herself as a traitor, I felt sorry for her, she was still a child and yet she had already been poisoned by Grimmera's dreadful guidance.

I stood up straight again and let Jess lead me down the many corridors in the prison. We stopped outside of a room with an extravagant door. Jess opened it quickly. The room looked very similar to a lobby, with clean white walls and a white wooden desk next to the door we came in through. Sat at the desk was a blonde man, dressed all in white and holding a phone to his ear. Opposite the desk was a big glass window and a glass door, a parking lot behind that filled with vans with the words 'Morte' written on them.

The man at the desk, Andrew if his name tag was correct, held up one finger with a smile, and motioned for us to sit on the sofa near us. He continued to speak as I sat down in shock. The bright atmosphere of the lobby was so different to the dark corridors of the rest of the building.

"Hmm?" Andrew asked. My head snapped up to look at him but he was still on the phone.  
"What? No way!" Andrew exclaimed, earning a scowl from Jess. Andrew's smile disappeared and turned into guilt.  
"Sorry, babe, I have to go," Andrew finished, putting the phone down and turning to us with a welcoming smile.

"Jess, she'll be ready for you both in a minute," Andrew said.  
"Thanks, Andrew!" Jess replied brightly, contrasting with the scowl she threw him earlier. Andrew turned back to the computer on his desk and typed away.  
"Stella, how are you feeling?" Jess asked me quietly, getting out her phone as if she wasn't talking to me.

"I'm alright, considering where I am," I replied sarcastically with a sigh. Jess smiled sympathetically.  
"I'm really sorry I have to do this," Jess said, tapping away at her phone. I tilted my head and frowned.  
"Jess, do you realize you are talking?" I asked quietly, making sure that Andrew couldn't hear us.  
"Of course, silly," Jess answered without looking at me.

"Anyway, I-" Jess went to speak but Andrew interrupted.  
"Hey, Jess! Grimmera's ready to see you," Andrew said with a dumb smile.

Jess stood up, dropping her phone in the process. She didn't go to pick it up but looked at me expectantly. I took the hint and picked up the phone to see that she was still in the middle of sending a message. It read:

_Stella, don't worry, I have a plan, don't tell the team_

I looked up at Jess to see her face clear from emotion. She held out her hand and I gave her back her phone, deleting the message in the process. Jess nodded after she saw the message gone and lead me out through a different door. The corridors were clean and white, similar to the lobby we had just been in.

Jess lead me through several turning corridors until we reached a long white corridor with just one door at the end.  
"This place is like a maze," Jess laughed under her breath, stopping outside of the room. The door had the words 'Casa dei morti' on it written in a swirly font.

"Casa dei morti? I've heard that before…" I said to myself as the door opened to reveal another lobby. This lobby, however, had dark, blood red walls and a black carpet floor. There was a mahogany desk next to the door and a dark haired woman sat behind it, dressed all in black. She had a sour face, as if she was eating a lemon and sat facing the wall opposite her, not doing anything at all. Unlike the other lobby, there were people in this lobby, crying silently on the floor, as there wasn't any chairs. There was a smell in the air of… of something I had never smelt before, like burnt popcorn or hair…

I looked around in shock at the people sat around me, the people who wore rags and had obviously been kept in worse conditions than I. I turned to Jess to find her teeth gritted and her eyes glassy, holding back tears. Jess looked at a woman sat in the corner, shivering in fear and from the cold of the room. The woman wasn't wearing a coat or cardigan, unlike most of the others in the room who had tatters at least.

Jess immediately took off her jacket and gently wrapped it around the woman, stroking her hair in the process. The woman smiled weakly at Jess and made a whimpering sound as she went to speak.  
"Shh, don't worry, you'll be fine," Jess whispered with a concerned smile.

"Child, do not speak with the prigionieri!" the woman at the desk screeched but Jess looked at her harshly.  
"Do not call them prisoners, not in Italian or in any other language," Jess said calmly, with a glare. The woman, Mildred if her name tag was correct, looked alarmed that anyone would speak back to her. Mildred went back to sitting with a blank expression. Jess walked back over to me and we sat on the floor near the woman Jess had helped.

"Her real, maiden name is Joy, Joy Connor, isn't that ironic," Jess said with a sigh. I asked her who she was talking about.  
"Grimmera, my mother," Jess replied bitterly.  
"Oh, well it is a little ironic," I said with a sigh.  
"A little? How can someone called Joy cause so much…"  
"Melancholy," I finished for her. She smiled slightly and nodded.

"You're not that bad, for a traitor," I said after a while. Jess winced on the word traitor.  
"I bet Tom doesn't agree with that, after all the spying I did on you all and what I'm doing now," Jess sighed with a frown.  
"Tom's not used to being spied on, he's used to be doing the spying," I said. Jess looked at me.  
"So you're saying that you're fine with being spied on, because I didn't just invade everyone else's privacy, I also invaded yours," Jess snapped.

"I can't say I like knowing that you saw me and Frank in… private moments and I can't say that I am fine with it. What you did was wrong, I'm not saying it was okay. But, you were a very good spy and a good person at heart, you shouldn't let yourself get upset over that," I answered, facing forwards. I knew that I was showing a side of myself that even Frank didn't get to see but I didn't mind. Jess needed to hear what I had to say.

Jess smiled a little and turned away from me as well, suddenly getting up and adopting a cold, harsh expression. I looked around in confusion, but I stayed sat down. I heard footsteps coming from a door opposite us, Jess must have heard them early. Wow, I thought, she has excellent hearing!

The door swung open to reveal Grimmera in a tight, black asymmetrical dress and holding a shimmering knife in her hand. She pressed the knife to her palm and turned it slowly, but it drew no blood. Everyone in the room held their breath and backed further into their corners. Grimmera smiled and opened her arms just as Jess walked forward, giving her mother a hug.  
"Are we ready for the fun part now?" Jess asked excitedly with a laugh.  
"Oh yes, my dear!" Grimmera smiled, grabbing my arm and pulling me into the room.

"Welcome, to la Sala del Dolore!" Grimmera said loudly, letting go of my hand and ostentatiously threw her arms to the side. I heard a light switch flicker on and the room around me lit up.

And what I saw chilled me to the bone.

The room was small with yellow walls and a wooden floor that was covered in little stains. There was a shiny silver metal table in the centre of the room with a cart of silver metal tools on it, next to the table. A painful white light shone from above the table, causing light to reflect off the table and onto the walls, making it easier to see the stains on the walls.

I gasped as I realized that the stains were blood! Grimmera pushed me from behind so I was closer to the table. I could see my reflection on the table, I could see my eyes wide with fear, my lips quivering, my skin pale.  
"Lie down on the table, Stella," Grimmera instructed brightly, walking over to the other side of it. Nervously, I jumped up onto the table and lay across it. I breathed in and out, trying very hard to stay calm.  
"You may leave now, Jess," Grimmera said with a smile. I turned my head to see Jess leave me alone with the psychopath who held a knife.

Grimmera picked up some rope and tied my wrists together and then tied my feet together. Even if I tried to, I couldn't escape, not with the rope at my feet.  
"I might kill you, I might not, I really can't decide," Grimmera started as she put on an apron, tying the ends of it together. She faced away from me and was searching through a box.

"It's taken me a while to organize this appointment, with all the havoc I've been causing, so I am going to try to enjoy this," Grimmera carried on, picking up a long blade and holding it away from her so I could see it. She laughed suddenly.  
"Try? As if I need to try and enjoy this, it's going to be so fun, a bonding experience for the two of us," she said happily.  
"Have you seen the news lately, by the way," Grimmera rambled on.

"No," I replied, curious as to why she asked. She laughed again and put the blade back.  
"The havoc I've been causing is everywhere, revenge for my employees, you know?" Grimmera responded.  
"I have, and don't tell my daughter this, released a chemical into the atmosphere that is making people go wild! All over England and Scotland, people are killing, stealing and destroying. It's really quite beautiful," Grimmera said with a proud sigh.

"Is there a way to stop it?" I asked, realizing that Grimmera wasn't just trying to kill me, but also destroy the entire world for whatever reason she had.  
"Umm, well, there is one way but I'm not telling you!" Grimmera said in a sing-song voice. She picked out a large scythe and twirled it in her hand.

"But let's just say that it requires me, or at least someone like me," Grimmera said before covering her mouth.  
"Oops! I let too much slip there, I must be too overjoyed at the prospect of our bonding session!" she added with a smile and adding a faint hint of emotion in her voice. I still couldn't see her face properly.

"I just can't decide which knife I'm going to use!" Grimmera complained.  
"Ahh," she squealed, suddenly holding out a small penknife.  
"Small yet effective," she muttered thoughtfully, the smile evident in her voice.  
"Yes, this will do," she finished.

I struggled against the bonds holding me against the table as my heart began to beat faster. I had never been tortured during my career as an MI9 agent and I wanted to be able to say that at my retirement party. My struggling wasn't good enough though, the ropes were tied up to tightly, causing my hands to lose their feeling, making it harder to actually try.

"Don't bother, dear. You're stuck here, but I will try to make this as slow and painful as possible, if that helps," Grimmera said. Finally, she turned to me without a smile. Her face was plastered with pure resentment and her eyes were gaping pits, full of emotion. As she walked closer to me and the light, I saw a tear roll down her cheek.

"Your grandmother killed my mother," she began, her voice breaking with sincere passion, "So know, I'm going to hurt you, slowly,"  
I looked down at the tear that ran down her face as it hit the floor with a loud splash. The knife she held was coming closer and closer and closer, threatening to cut me open as I lay, constricted to the table.

As she stood above me, gripping the knife so hard her knuckles turned white, I looked at the apron she wore and laughed in irony to myself about it. It had the words 'World's Best Mummy' written on it, and was covered in streaky lines of deep red blood…


	23. Chapter 23 - Names on Paper

Chapter 23: Names on Paper

Apprehensively, I shut the door behind me, leaving Stella with my knife wielding maniac of a mother. I felt awful for letting my mother – no, Grimmera – take Stella away to be questioned, or even tortured. I forced myself to fell some level of appreciation for my efforts as I had convinced Grimmera to spare Stella for now. For now.

I winced at the realization that Grimmera was a psychopath with fluctuating moods and emotions. She would kill Stella if I didn't stop her soon enough so I had to start soon. My plan had to planned. I sat on the floor outside the room with a frown. I didn't have a proper plan yet. I needed more information on why people were behaving so savagely without reason so I could do something to help stop it.

My ear adjusted to the noise of the hostages around me and I blocked the tears and the whimpers and the screams out, concentrating my ears onto the room behind me. My hearing had become like eyesight, and was able to focus in on certain noises, blurring out anything different. I could hear the sound of metal on metal, along with the sound of pulled rope.

"It's taken me a while to organize this appointment, with all the havoc I've been causing, so I am going to try to enjoy this," Grimmera said slowly, the smile evident in her voice. I tilted my head slightly. There was a sudden laugh and I jumped slightly from where I sat on the floor. Grimmera mumbled something that I couldn't hear.

"No," Stella said quietly, her voice straining. I noticed that Mildred was looking at me out of the corner of her eye so I got out my phone and pretended to tap away. The noise of my phone being pulled out of my pocket distracted me from the room behind me so I refocused my ears.  
"I have, and don't tell my daughter this, released a chemical into the atmosphere that is making people go wild. All over England and Scotland, people are killing, stealing and destroying! It's really quite beautiful," Grimmera said, adding thick emotion into her voice.

A chemical! If it was like a disease I could find a cure! Newfound hope caused a laugh to escape my lips and those around me stared at me with disbelief. I cleared my throat awkwardly, my face reddening as eyes locked onto me. They probably thought I was exactly like my mother, that bitch. That awful, crazy, murderous, inconsiderate, imp-like bitch!

"Is there a way to stop it?" Stella asked nervously. I could almost feel Grimmera smile from outside of the room. I wanted to kill her. I wanted to rip that smile off of her face for good. I wanted my laugh to be the last thing she heard. I was grateful that I was a good actress, being around her made me want to be sick.

"Umm, well, there is one way but I'm not telling you! But let's just say that it requires me, or at least someone like me," Grimmera sung sweetly. I heard a quiet slap.  
"Oops! I let too much slip there, I must be too overjoyed at the prospect of our bonding session!" she added with a smile laced with sickly sweet joy. But I didn't care about that. Someone like me, she had said? Who would that be?

My mind wandered, only reawakening when I heard a little squeal.  
"Small yet effective," Grimmera pondered, "Yes, this will do." I heard the bonds of the rope stretch as Stella moved around.  
"Don't bother, dearie. You're stuck here, but I will try to make this as slow and painful as possible, if that helps. Your grandmother killed my mother, so know, I'm going to hurt you, slowly," Grimmera spoke with passion.

Time seemed to slow down. I needed to help Stella and stop the chemical from completely destroying the country but most importantly, I needed time to do these things. But time was the thing I was running out of. So I made my decision in that split second, a dangerous decision.

That was my life. I made decisions that I was unsure of. I didn't know how investigating Tom would turn out just as I didn't know if abandoning them was a good idea, but I did it anyway. What did I have to lose? My crazy mother? My non-existent friends? My life? None of that mattered any more.

I looked down at my phone to see that as I had debated my plan, I had typed out a text. I pressed send and waited for it to go through. If I failed, Grimmera would probably kill me. That didn't matter. I had to save them.

My phone beeped loudly to signal that the message I sent had come back to me. I tried to look surprised and opened the text.

_Direct orders: Send the prisoners down to the cells and don't come back here. It's going to get loud in here soon. I've picked a knife! ;). Grimmera_

I read through the message I had sent myself and got up. Hopefully, I thought, she won't check to see who actually sent it! I walked over to Mildred and pushed my phone into her face. She frowned at me before reading it. Her eyes widened and a smiled formed on her face as she got through the message. My heart pounded against my chest and my hand threatened to shake, making the phone wobble slightly in my grip.

After I was sure she had read the whole message, I pulled my phone away.  
"Why didn't Grimmera send me the message?" Mildred sneered with a sceptical frown. I rolled my eyes and put my phone away.  
"I don't know. Maybe she trusts me more than you, I am her daughter after all!" I said, adding emphasis at the end.

Mildred eyes flashed with hate before she smiled sarcastically.  
"Very well," she said, getting up and whistling.  
"Prigionieri!" she shouted and every eye turned to her.  
"You are being moved into the cells under direct orders from Grimmera," she finished causing a wave of cries and gasps to flow through the room.

"Please, miss!" I heard a man say from the back of the room.  
"Do something!" I heard the woman I had given my jacket say, looking directly at me. I frowned. They seemed stressed as if…  
"I don't want to die!" I heard a little girl cry from the front of the room. As if I had sent them to their deaths.

I forced my expression to stay indifferent but it was hard. In the process of saving someone, I had sentenced a room of fifteen to death. My breath hitched in my throat. When Mildred began pushing them out of the room, their horror, their misery spread across their faces like paint, it took every ounce of my will power to not run after them, to not come clean and say that the text was a lie, to leave Stella and Tom and the rest of the world alone and save fifteen innocent lives at the cost of my own. I wouldn't let my body move, I couldn't allow myself.

It was crazy. I was getting emotional over fifteen people I didn't know. Why should I care if they lived or died? Why should I? I felt someone tug on my arm.  
"I understand, we're not important. Our lives are just names on paper after all. When this is done, when we die, the sun will rise and billions of people won't know what happened. Billions of people won't care, so why should you?" the woman I gave my jacket to whispered with a knowing smile as a tear ran down her face. She walked away, handing me my jacket as she hobbled on. Tears rolled down my own cheek and I realized why I cared.

I cared, because no one else did. I cared because, if I didn't, in a place like Morte, I was the only one who could. Putting on my jacket and wiping away my tears, I vowed that I would not only try to save Stella, Tom, Aneisha, Dan, Keri, Frank and Britain, but I would also try to save fifteen people that I didn't know.

With a new sense of hope and everyone in the room gone, I walked over to the fire alarm and smashed it, the loud ringing starting immediately, accompanied by red flashing light...  
"No turning back now," I whispered, ducking behind the torture room door as Grimmera walked out.

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**Sorry I haven't updated in awhile! I didn't know what I wanted in this chapter but I have planned out what is going to happen in the next few. If you couldn't tell, this fanfic is nearing its end and I just wanted to say thanks to those who have reviewed, I really enjoy writing for you all!**


	24. Chapter 24 - Stella's POV: Torture

Chapter 24: Stella POV - Torture

When the blade cut through my skin, white, blinding hot light exploded behind my eyes. I could feel warm blood drip down my arm excruciatingly slowly. I felt impatient, almost, for the bead to drop off of my hands and onto the floor, adding another stain to the room. My stain. The mark that I was there. I bit my lip, holding back a scream as she pressed the blade in further on my other arm, dragging it down to my elbow. My lip began to bleed as I pierced the skin through the pain.

The room was eerily silent, only the sound of tearing skin could be heard, echoing quietly off the walls.  
"Ha, this is fun!" Grimmera laughed, breaking the silence.  
"I almost feel as if…" she continued, stopping suddenly and pulling out the penknife.

She looked scared as she looked at the blood on her hands, but she sighed outwardly and gripped onto the knife. I knew what was happening, it was her body. Her mind was broken, merciless, but her body knew that it was unnatural to hurt another human being. Her body was just responding to the fact that it was committing inhuman acts.

"As if I could kill you!" she laughed, erratically, pacing around in the room.  
"But I can't do that, can I? I need to prolong your suffering," she whispered with a smile.  
"I can't let you get away with what you, what your family have done," she whimpered, crouching on the floor, holding herself together.

"You don't have to do this," I said, "You could let me and the team go and stop the country from destroying itself. I'm sure that is what your mother would have wanted." Grimmera stood up with a moderately quiet scream.  
"You do not know what my mother would have wanted!" she screeched, grabbing my wound and twisting my arm.

The light exploded again and I bit my tongue. Grimmera lifted up the knife as I squirmed underneath her grasp. She dug her sharp nails into my face and scratched them across my cheek, the knife cutting across the top of my nose as she did so. I heard the knife clatter to the ground as she threw it across the room.

She lifted up her hand, switching it into a fist and bringing it down onto my face. The ring on her hand cut my lip even further and I found it hard not to cry out in pain. My arm throbbed, my lip stung, my cheek hurt and my head was pounding. I felt dizzy and sick and tired.

Grimmera picked up the knife and lifted up my shirt, pressing the metal of the blade to my stomach. She ran the flat side across my gut causing a shiver to run down my spine.  
"I wonder if Frank would still love you if I ruined your pretty little face, if I opened up your insides for them all to see. If he could see how… twisted, how sinful you are on the inside, would he care that you were dead?" she asked, still trailing the knife up and down, up and down, up and down my stomach. She twisted the knife so that the sharp part rested on my torso.

"Would he feel disgusted by you? Would you disgust him, Stella?" she tilted her head, "Let's find out!" She slashed the knife across the centre of my chest when, suddenly, a loud alarm sounded, followed immediately by a red flashing light. The noise hurt my already pounding head.

Grimmera looked around confusedly, placing the knife back in the box. She muttered something under her breath while untying her apron and opened the door wide. I watched her walk away from the room and towards the corridor outside. When she was gone from my sight, I let out a sigh and allowed my eyes to cry. A whimper escaped my lip, making me to wince due to teeth I assumed were broken from her punch. I sniffed and imagined what I looked like, if someone could see me.

"Stella!" I heard someone cry from the entrance to the room. I couldn't move my head to see who it was.  
"Oh my god, I'm too late!" she sobbed, walking in so I could see her face out of the corner of my eye.  
"I'm so sorry, I didn't want you to get hurt at all," Jess said.

"It's okay, not your fault," I coughed causing Jess to jump back before smiling broadly.  
"Thank goodness you're alive!" she exclaimed. I forgot about the rope and tried to get up causing a spasm of pain ran across my chest from my wound that was seeping blood onto my shirt. Jess looked down at my stomach and frowned.

Tentatively, she lifted up the bottom of my shirt and gasped when she saw the cut. I wanted to look down at it but I knew that what I would see wasn't good. She closed her eyes and shook her head. She got out a pack of tissues from her pocket and got one out. Jess was about to put it on my wound but I stopped her.

"When Grimmera comes back, what will she do if she sees you helping me?" I asked through gritted teeth. Jess looked up with a pained frown. She really wanted to help but she couldn't, she needed to stop the chemical from destroying Britain.  
"Jess," I began as she put the tissues away, "Britain has gone wild, there is a chemical-"  
"I know. How do we stop it?" she asked.

I bit my lip out of habit and held back a grimace.  
"I figured it out when she was torturing me. She said that she needed someone like her to stop it, right?" I said. Jess nodded.  
"Well, what if the only person who can stop it is someone related to Grimmera, someone like her!" I finished.

"Me? No! I don't know how to stop it!" Jess exclaimed, backing away from me and beginning to pace.  
"I don't even know where the stopping thing is!" she cried.  
"Jess, I don't know either but if Grimmera was telling the truth, you are the only one apart from Grimmera that can stop it, unless you have a brother or sister!" I calmly said. Jess paled slightly.  
"Jess? Do you have a brother or sister?" I asked her.

"Well, actually, she does!" I heard a girl say from the doorway. Jess gasped as the girl walked in. The girl had long black hair and was taller than Jess but there was a resemblance in their faces. She wore a black pencil skirt and a white blouse. There was no doubt about it. Jess had a sister, and she worked for Grimmera as well!


	25. Chapter 25 - Stella's POV: Revelations

Chapter 25: Stella POV - Revelations

"Oh come on! Not you too," Jess cried, throwing her hands up into the air dramatically.  
"Is there anyone in my family that isn't evil!" she ranted.  
"But dear sister, being evil is so fun! You should try it some time," Jess' sister said enthusiastically.  
"No, I'm being serious. If any more family members announce themselves as being evil, I may develop some severe mental problems in the future. I will never be able to trust again," Jess laughed.

"And I say sorry for that," Jess's sister apologized. Her eyes brushed over me.  
"Oh, hello! You must be Stella. My name is Jennifer but Jess calls me Jen," Jennifer said warmly. I smiled back at her.  
"Nice to meet you, Jennifer. It's a shame you had to meet me under such awful conditions," I said dryly. I looked at Jess.  
"I didn't know you had a sister Jess, I see a theme with your family and names that begin with J!" I added with a sarcastic smile.

"Yeah. Joy, Jen and Jess," Jess muttered. Suddenly, Jen launched herself at Jess but Jess saw it coming. She ducked and ran through Jen's legs, causing them to switch places in the space of five seconds.  
"I'm impressed, you're good. Not good enough," Jen said, quickly bringing up her leg that came in contact with Jess' chest. Jess gasped as the air was drawn out of her lungs with one forceful kick.

Jess lunged at her sister and grabbed her leg before Jen could bring it down. Jen's eyes widened as Jess pulled her leg towards her, making Jen fall backwards onto the floor.  
"I'm impressed, Jen. I thought I was the sporty one," Jess said, impressed.  
"But you're not good enough," Jess added, stomping on Jen's ankle.

"I am fed up with people I trust betraying me, lying to me throughout my entire life," Jess yelled through gritted teeth, turning away from her sister.  
"I'm fed up with people underestimating me," Jen spoke from the floor, getting up in one swift movement and pushing Jess forward before she had the chance to turn around.

"They've done it all my life, you have always been the golden girl, mother's pride and joy. The sporty one, the smart one, the pretty one. What am I to you, Jess? What am I to mother with you around? I'm just the back-up, in case you failed. Now, I'm going to prove that I can be the golden girl," Jen said with a smile, pushing Jess to the ground and twisting her so that she faced Jen.

"I can't let you stop the chemical because, if I do, mother won't be happy and I want mother to be happy," Jen continued, sneering at her sister. Jen lifted up her fist and brought it down onto Jess, snapping her face to the side.  
"I also can't let you stop the chemical as, by doing so, you would be sacrificing your own life and mother doesn't want that either," Jen added with a scowl.

"She doesn't know you're a traitor yet, I can't wait to tell her," Jen finished, lifting up her fist again but before it collided with Jess' face, Jess caught her fist and pushed it away. Jess threw a punch at Jen's face and she fell over, hitting the ground with a loud thwack.  
"Sacrificing my own life? What do you mean?" Jess asked. Jen laughed madly from the floor as she lifted up a finger to her bleeding nose.

"You stupid girl, don't you know what sacrificing is? You die!" Jen laughed. Jess paled and gasped.  
"Is, is that the only way?" Jess asked.  
"Yeah! Go ahead Jess, stop Grimmera but at a price. You can be the hero, you can save Tom but you sacrifice your own life.

Jess looked like she was thinking something over. Suddenly, her eyes sharpened, filled with determination.  
"Jess?" I asked quietly. When she didn't respond, I asked again, a little louder.  
"Jess, you can't be thinking of surrendering yourself? Jess, there has to be another way!" I screamed.  
"No, no other way."  
"There is always another way!"  
"Not this time, Stella."  
"Jess, Tom wouldn't want you dead!"  
"I don't care. Tom wouldn't want anything if he was dead! I have to save him, I have to save them."  
"Wait, we can get MI9 scientists in here, they can destroy it," I finished, a wild look in my eyes. I couldn't let her die.

"No, it is a virus. If you destroy the chemical, it is still out there. By sacrificing yourself, you become the cure, your life essence is the cure, the life essence of Grimmera and her family, it will spread through the air and cure Britain," Jen laughed from the floor.  
"But I will have to die," Jess finished.

"I could save them all," Jess pondered.  
"No," I said quietly.  
"I could save Britain,"  
"No," I said, getting louder.  
"Then MI9 will save you, Stella,  
"No," I said, getting louder.  
"Then you can save Tom and his friends and Frank,"  
"No," I said, getting louder.  
"Then you could all save the fifteen prisoners!"  
"NO! I don't want anyone to die here!" I screamed.

"Stella!" Jess exclaimed, "Don't you see! This is the only way." Jess knocked Jen unconscious and dragged her into a cupboard. She went to walk out but stopped at the doorway.  
"I can't have you stopping me. I'm sorry Stella," she said, hitting me hard. Just before I lost consciousness, I screamed as Jess walked away.  
"No," I said faintly…


	26. Chapter 26 - Choices

Chapter 26: Choices

"No," Stella whispered faintly as I walked away. I turned back to see her unconscious on the metal table. She looked awful. Just seeing what my mother did to her was enough to make my blood boil. No-one deserved such awful injuries. Her face was pale and covered in little red marks, while her left eye was black. Her arms had perfect placed lines cut into them and were oozing red blood, her left wrist bent awkwardly, as if it was broken. Her legs were left virtually untouched, thankfully.

The fire alarm still rang through the lobby, causing my ears to cry out in pain again. I searched behind Mildred's desk to find a way of turning off the alarm. I smiled seeing the button labelled 'Fire alarm' and pressed it, hoping it would turn it off. It did!

Just as I reached to open the door into the corridor, I heard Mildred walking back. I cursed under my breath and ran back to the torture room to hide in a cupboard with Jen. She was still unconscious so I crouched next to her in the dark of the cupboard. I noted that I wasn't scared. My heart wasn't beating faster in my chest. Physically, I was calm.

I laughed silently at how quickly I had gotten used to doing these sorts of things. Hiding, lying, fighting! The door into the lobby opened, suddenly, stopping my thoughts. I could hear the sound of her heels clattering against the ground as she walked back to her desk.  
"Hmm? No screaming?" Mildred asked herself out loud. I winced, mentally kicking myself that I hadn't kept Stella conscious so she could pretend to scream.

"Grimmera!" Mildred shouted, clattering towards the torture room. When she didn't get an answer, I heard the door open slightly.  
"Grimmera, I'm coming in!" she said, pushing open the door to see Stella on the table, covered in cuts and newly formed bruises.

"Ha ha!" she laughed. I could hear her turn to leave so I sighed, thankful that she assumed that Grimmera had knocked out Stella. As she walked away, she tripped over something metal. The knife! It must have fallen out of the box when Jen and I were fighting. Mildred stopped and clattered back in.

"Grimmera isn't here. Why?" Mildred whispered to herself. I prayed that she wouldn't look under the cupboard and find me. She walked back in and my heart rate reacted, picking up its pace.  
"And why did she leave her knife on the floor? Unless…" Mildred said, louder than before.  
"Unless," she continued, "Someone else was in here and dropped it! Grimmera would never leave it on the floor."

My eyes widened in surprise. How did Mildred, Mildred of all people, figure it out? At least, a quiet part of mind thought, this can't get any worse, it is unlikely she will search the cupboards unless you make a sound! Well, I was wrong, it could get worse. Just as Mildred was beginning to walk away again, presumably to find Grimmera like a lost puppy, Jen began to stir from her sleep.

"Hmm? Where am I?" Jen mumbled groggily. I panicked and slammed my hand over her mouth but I was too late, Mildred had heard her! I could feel her smiling slyly, like a lion about to pounce on its prey. Jen moved, but still wasn't fully awake yet.  
"Come out, whoever you are!" Mildred demanded, confidence in her voice.

With no other choice, I pushed open the cupboard and stepped out, keeping Jen hidden from view. I looked down at my feet and shut the cupboard door. Mildred looked at me confusedly.  
"Jess? Why were you hiding?" she asked, with a sneer. I scowled at her and decided that I would catch her when she wasn't looking. She held the knife but I knew that if I reached her quickly, she wouldn't have time to stab me with it. To be honest, I was tired, I was running on pure adrenaline, I wasn't thinking entirely straight.

"Umm," I said, looking up and lunging at Mildred. Her eyes widened as she fell back onto the floor, she hadn't been expecting it. I smiled as I began to walk towards her head, to knock her out. After knocking her out, I went to grab the knife from her grasp but she wasn't holding it. I tilted my head in confusion but my eyes widened as I looked down. As I had lunged towards Mildred, she had brought her hands towards her gut, out of instinct, and brought the knife with it, meaning that I lunged into her knife!

My head jerked to my stomach to see a giant wound near the left side of my hip and the knife sticking out of it. Pain rushed through me as I processed what had happened. Blood dripped out of it and dripped down my hips and through my clothes.  
"Aarghh!" I screamed, in a high pitched voice. I went to walk forward but felt dizzy, causing me to fall onto the floor on my left side and pushing the blade further into me.

I got up weakly, holding onto the handle of the knife. I turned my head to my back to see the tip of the blade poking out. It had gone through my entire waist! My breathing quickened as I realized that I needed to take the knife out. Do I have to, I asked myself with panic. If it hurt to go in, it was guaranteed to hurt when it came out.

"Okay Jess, it's just a knife, it's like removing a plaster," I calmed myself. I gripped the knife's handle and breathed in and out.  
"Three, two, one – AARGHH!" I ripped out the knife as cleanly as possible, blood spurting out like it was fake. I let out a guttural scream and collapsed onto my knees. I wasn't used to pain like this. There was a boiling hot pain in my abdomen as if my skin was burning! I felt selfish as Stella had coped with multiple injuries; cuts and bruises and scars that may never heal. There I was, with the knife in my hand, crying out from a wound that others could face bravely. I held my face in my hands and sobbed. I wasn't strong. No, I was, I could do it!

I sniffed and held my hand to my wound.  
"Right, first things first," I said unevenly, "I need some way to clean this." I got up and hobbled towards the desk, searching through the draws for something, anything I could use to take away the pain.  
"Actually, how do you clean a stab wound?" I asked myself, unsure of the answer. My eyes flicked up at the computer that was still on.

Careful to not aggravate the wound, I sat on the chair, opening up google.  
"What do you use… to clean a… knife wound?" I typed in slowly, saying the words as I typed them in. Multiple methods of cleaning small cuts or scrapes appeared, but only one result suited my needs. It was called 'How to attend to a stab wound.'

"Yes!" I whispered. There were about four steps that didn't apply to me before I found a step that did.  
"Leave the stabbing object in the wound if it is still there. Pulling it out will increase blood loss, and pushing it in may cause further injury. You'll just need to dress the wound around the knife the best that you can," I read, pulling a face, "Well, damn it!" I looked down at the wound to see tons of blood spilling out of it.

"Well, what else is there?" I asked myself, scrolling down the page. It told me to attach dressing to the wound, like bandages or a shirt if necessary, and to stick it in place with tape, applying pressure. I ran to Jen in the cupboard and pulled a stretch of fabric from her skirt, as it hung off like a black tutu. I made sure to punch her in the face so she stayed asleep… and also because I felt like hitting something.

I lifted up my shirt and wrapped the material around my waist, pressing my hand against my wound to apply pressure. I winced as pain shot around my tummy, doubling over at the sudden discomfort. I sat myself down on the chair again and found some cello tape to keep the material in place.

"Umm, this looks okay, I guess," I said to myself, looking down at my waist. I bit my lip and pulled down my blood covered shirt. Pulling my jacket around me to hide the blood, I got up from the chair and stood in front of the desk, to test out my movement. Luckily, the pain in my side had subsided, but it was still there, pulsing in the background of my mind.

I stood in the lobby, unsure of where to go. I had to make a decision. There was a door on my right, which was the door that Grimmera went through, and the area I hadn't been in. There was a door on my left, which was the door that Mildred led the prisoners through, and where the cells were, where Tom was.

I had to go one way, so which way would I go?

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**Okay, so I know this is a little bit random, but I decided to give you all a choice here, so you can be involved with the story more. I was inspired to do this from a Corpse Party Fanfic I read that had choices at the end of every chapter.**

**So, Jess can go right or left, it doesn't matter which really but each will have its own unique part that leads up to the same part, if that makes sense?**

**Right: Grimmera and the unknown place**

**Left: Tom, Frank, Aneisha, Dan, Keri, 15 prisoners and the cells**

* * *

**Vote Right or Left as a review, please! Choose what you want, not what other reviewers want. Don't give in to peer pressure!**


	27. Chapter 27 - Left

**And the winning choice is... Left! I got a lot, a lot, of reviews saying left so here it is. However, I decided to show you the beginning paragraph of Right, just so you know what would have happened if Jess had gone the other way.**

I decided to go right. It was the most logical option! Grimmera went right after she heard the alarm, and she probably went that way to check that no-one was at the machine to send out the cure!

**I hope you are all happy with the choice you made (I am!). Enjoy the chapter!**

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Chapter 27: Left (Option B)

I decided to go left. It was the most logical option! I could save the prisoners and Tom and his friends, the cure could wait! They would know what to do, they were the spies! My decision was made.

I opened the door slowly, expecting to see guards outside but instead I was greeting with silence, with nothing. No-one was around, the guards were all gone.  
"Thank goodness," I breathed, thankful that I wouldn't have to fight with my wound. I walked down the corridors as quietly and as evenly as possible, holding onto the wall so that I wouldn't fall again.

I would need to go through the white lobby to get to the cells. Morte pretended to own a mental asylum so they could get away with keeping people trapped in the cells. When the prisoners told visitors or inspectors that they were being held against their will and that they worked for the government, the visitors would assume that the prisoners were just insane. It was very sad, really, that Morte got away with so much because people never believed in the truth.

Andrew, the man who worked in the white lobby, didn't even know that Morte was a criminal organisation, like many other people who worked for Grimmera. Deception, it seemed, was something she was good at. She had managed to trick me into believing she was sane for over fifteen years! As the cells were part of the 'asylum,' they were closer to the white lobby. The other lobby was hidden away as it was the main entrance to the Morte facility.

Finally, I reached the entrance to the lobby and, pushing the door open with the hand that wasn't on my wound, stepped inside. I expected the room to be empty like everywhere else and it was, mostly, but something else shocked me. The white lights flickered and chairs had been pushed aside, one chair thrown outside, through a broken glass window and out onto the car park. Shattered glass was strewn across the floor outside and Andrew lay, asleep in his chair.

"Andrew? What happened?" I asked innocently, stepping closer to him. When he didn't respond, I walked around the desk so I could see his face. I gasped and pulled my hand up to my mouth when I saw him. He wasn't asleep, he was dead!  
"Oh… my god!" I whispered, my voice breaking.

His throat had been slit, his head lolling back. His eyes were wide open in fear, and his mouth was open, as if he was about to scream. The clean white suit he had worn was ripped, red blood staining it. A tear rolled down my cheek, a tear shed for someone I didn't know. My hand still covered my mouth.

In the corner of my eye, I noticed a sort of sparkle in the air. I frowned and went to touch it, but it disappeared as if it was a gas.  
"A gas?" my eyes widened as I realized what had happened.  
"The anger virus must have gotten in from outside!" I said, quickly closing my mouth so that I wouldn't breathe it in.

Quickly, I ran to the other door that would lead to the cells, almost tripping over a chair on my way. I closed the door and rested against the wall. Hopefully, I hadn't breathed any of the virus in.  
"Okay, the prisoners had to be taken through there to be taken to the cells, so, let's say someone got angry, threw a chair that went through the window, releasing the virus into the air of the lobby. The prisoners then attack from anger and… kill Andrew and anyone else in their way, including each other, maybe," I said, assuming that was what had happened.  
"That would explain why the guards have gone, they would have gone to stop the prisoners!" I explained to myself.

"Wow. This situation is becoming gradually weirder!" I laughed slightly, wincing at the pain in my abdomen that came from it. I pushed myself from off of the wall and began to walk closer towards the cells, forgetting to pull my jacket around me, leaving the blood on my shirt visible.

I stopped outside of the cell and closed my eyes briefly, recapping what I planned to say in my head.  
"Okay," I whispered, reaching for the keys on the wall and unlocking the door. The door swung open with ease, revealing Dan, Aneisha, Keri and Frank, stood in fighting position with confused or determined expressions on their faces. I spotted Tom at the back of the room, sat on the bed with a haunted look in his eyes.

I leaned against the door frame with a calm smile. Tom stood up and walked between Aneisha and Keri. I ignored the warmth I felt in my heart when I saw him.  
"Go," I said softly, turning and walking into the corridor, indicating that they should follow. Their stances wavered, and Keri stood straight, tilting her head in confusion before smiling a little and walking out.

"Keri?" Dan asked her as she walked away from them. I smiled at her as she walked out and looked around. After seeing that there wasn't any guards around, she turned to me.  
"Thanks, Jess," she said calmly, despite the fact that her friends still stood in the cell, looking at her as if she was insane. Noticing this, she turned to them and spoke.

"What? She said we could go!" Keri asked with a frown.  
"Keri, we can't trust her. She's the enemy, a traitor, a double-agent," Dan spat, looking at me disgustedly.  
"Hey," I said, "I can't be a double-agent if I wasn't an agent in the first place!"

Dan scoffed, looking away from me. Aneisha stepped towards the door causing Dan's eyes to widen.  
"Aneisha!" Dan said.  
"Dan!" Aneisha scorned, turning on her heel, "We need to get out either way so unless you have a better plan, I'm leaving!"

Only Frank, Dan and Tom remained in the room. I sighed and walked in, knowing that the girls wouldn't shut the door with their team inside.  
"Frank, Grimmera will be heading back to Stella soon to torture her again and I don't want her to end up any worse than she already is, please, trust me on this, all of you," I pleaded. Frank's eyes softened on the mention of Stella and Dan seemed to be debating the option in his head.

Frank slowly walked out of the room and I smiled softly, following him out. Dan and Tom followed shortly after.  
"Go down that corridor, find a lobby. In the lobby don't breathe in the air because of the anger virus –" I started but Frank stopped me.  
"Anger virus?" he asked slowly.

"Oh yeah, you don't know!" I said, while everyone looked at me, confused.  
"Well, Morte has released a chemical into the air that affects people's emotions. It makes people, to put it simply, murderously angry," I explained.  
"How do we stop it?" Aneisha asked me. I looked down and decided not to tell them the truth. I didn't want them to stop me.

"Um, I know how, but I don't know where the machine is that stops it," I clarified. Frank nodded slightly.  
"Okay, so we find Stella and then we find the way to stop the virus," Frank turning towards the lobby's direction. I turned to shut the cell door but I heard Aneisha gasp so I looked up.

"What?" I asked. Aneisha pointed at my shirt and I looked down to see the blood on my shirt completely visible in the light of the corridor and the black patch of fabric I used to cover my wound sliding slowly down my leg and onto the floor.  
"Damn it!" I exclaimed, beginning to pick up the fabric but stopping when I felt a stab of pain in my side. Someone picked the fabric up for me and when I looked up at them, I blushed when I saw it was Tom.

Our faces were inches apart but he looked away, embarrassed, so I took the material from him and lifted up my shirt to put it back in place. I heard the whole team gasp when they saw the wound. It was a lot bigger than I remembered it to be and there was a lot of blood gushing out of it.  
"How did that happen?" Tom asked gently, bending slightly to get a better look at it. I bit my lip.

"Jen and Mildred," I said coldly, "my sister and Grimmera's servant." Tom backed away from me slightly, tilting his head and getting up.  
"You have a sister?" Tom asked. I nodded, moving the fabric back into place as I spoke.  
"Yeah, it turned out that she worked for Grimmera. I don't think that there is anyone in my family that hasn't betrayed me," I said sadly.

Pulling my shirt down, I saw Tom and his friends staring at me. Tom was smiling as if he trusted me a bit again. My heart warmed at the hope that we could be friends again.  
"So you really don't work for Grimmera?" Dan asked.  
"I really, truly don't work for that swine, and I never will," I nodded.

"I pretended to work for her so that I could save you all. I took Stella down to be tortured but set off a fire alarm before Grimmera had time to properly injure her. Grimmera left the room after the fire alarm went off meaning that I could help Stella. I then knocked out my own sister, who made a noise in her sleep, which Mildred heard. She then stabbed me so I knocked her out. I fell on the knife, pushing it further into me so I then pulled it out. I wrapped a stretch of fabric from Jen's dress to keep my wound safe. I left Stella with two knocked out maniacs. Now I'm going to go and release a cure to the anger virus while you save Stella before my sister and Mildred wake up," I said, gesturing that they should walk forward.

"Oh, and Tom? Sorry about this," I said. Tom turned to me and was about to ask me what I meant but I cut him off. I walked up to him, wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him. I expected him to push me off but instead he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer. I melted into him, a warmth spreading around my heart. I felt a pang of sadness when I realized that this would be my first and last kiss, but I brushed it off. I didn't care. I would die happy.

I pulled away when breathing became a problem, but kept my arms on him. I smiled up at him and felt a tear roll down my cheek. Tom was stood still, with a look of confusion and happiness. It broke my heart to know it was the last time I would see him.  
"Goodbye, Tom," I whispered, running away down the corridor and towards my death. I decided to head towards the other door that was in the dark lobby as that was probably where the machine to send out the cure was.

I lifted my hand up to my lip and smiled softly. How I wished I had been able to go on that date with Tom!


	28. Chapter 28 - Frank's POV: Pandora's Box

Chapter 28: Frank's POV – Pandora's Box

"Goodbye, Tom," Jess whispered as Tom held her in his arms. It was only a little awkward for the rest of us but I felt a hint of pride. Tom and the team felt like they were my children, so it was nice to see Tom, who had thought no girl would ever like him like they all liked Dan, with someone who loved him. Jess pulled away from him and ran past us and down the corridor. Tom stayed where he was, fixed to the same spot he had stood when he kissed Jess. Slowly, he lifted his hand up to his lip and touched them, smiling slightly.

I cleared my throat and Tom whirred around, as if he had forgotten that we were here. Aneisha and Keri were quietly laughing at Tom, which made Tom's face redden.  
"Sh – Shut up," Tom muttered, walking past us, reminding me that we needed to save Stella.

"Alright team, we need to find Stella quickly and carefully. Jess has informed us on the overall direction, but we have to get there without breathing in the virus. If you breathe it in," I paused, "I am afraid we will have to leave you behind." The team looked determined and I smiled.  
"We can do this!" Keri said energetically.  
"Come on, let's save Stella," Dan said plainly, beginning to walk down the corridor.

We carried on down the corridors until we reached the lobby. I put my hand over my mouth and nose, the team copying me soon after.  
"Right, we go in there and get out as fast as we can, no stopping," I informed them, hand on the door handle.

I pushed open the door and rushed in, sensing the team moving behind me. Seeing the door, I made a run for it, opening it when I got there and walking through it.  
"Everyone out?" I asked through my hand.  
"Yes," Aneisha nodded.  
"Yes," Dan nodded. I heard no reply from Keri.

"Keri!" I exclaimed, reopening the door to see Keri stood there, a look of irritation painted on her face as she tapped her foot.  
"Why didn't you try to open the door?" I asked her as she stepped out into the corridor.  
"I did! It didn't open, idiot!" Keri shouted. We looked at her in confusion. Keri didn't normally get angry…

"Keri, did you breathe in the virus?" Dan said carefully, seeming to read my mind. Keri scowled at us.  
"How should I know?" she laughed coldly.  
"Oh no!" Aneisha cried, throwing her hands up. I turned to the team and nodded, knowing they would understand me.  
"Sorry about this," I apologised, pushing her back into the room and running down the corridor, the team following me closely. After turning down many different hallways, we stopped, Aneisha and Tom panting from the running.

"I think… we have… lost her," Tom coughed.  
"It feels weird… running away from… her like that," Aneisha breathed, dealing slightly better with the running than Tom.  
"Yeah," Dan agreed.  
"Okay, is everyone ready to find Stella?" I asked. Everyone nodded, except for Tom, who was looking closely at the door next to us.

"Tom? What is it?" Aneisha asked him, haven gotten her breath back.  
"Casa dei morti…" Tom read aloud. He was reading the text on the door in front of us that was painted on in black in a neat, swirled font. I gasped as I realized what it meant.  
"Frank?" Dan asked, noticing my reaction, "What's the matter?"

"Casa dei morti. It's a… code, you could say, that Morte used when they were in their prime. Morte used to work under the radar, as rehabilitation centres or mental hospitals or elderly homes, so that no-one could suspect them, using their patient's sanity as an excuse if anyone there found out about it. Casa dei morti was always used as the entrance to their main building, where they did the more sinister things, like torture or planning out a heist. Casa dei morti being Italian for 'House of the Dead,'" I explained to the team.

"But, what if a visitor could speak Italian, wouldn't it be weird for there to be a room labelled, house of the dead?" Tom asked.  
"Ah, see that was the problem that led to their downfall. An Italian MI9 agent visited their mother in an elderly home and found the entrance. He investigated it and told MI9 about it, just before they found him and killed him. It was too late for Morte, though. MI9 raided the elderly home and caught a lot of Morte agents, who informed them of the warehouse where the old Grimmera would go if they were under attack. We then caught Grimmera and she was killed, by Stella's grandmother, I believe," I answered. Realization dawned on me.

"Oh, that's why the current Grimmera is so keen on hurting Stella! Grimmera's mother was killed by Stella's family, so Grimmera want's revenge," I said.  
"We better go in there then," Dan said, looking at me and the team, who nodded with him.  
"Yeah, if Stella is going to be anywhere, it's in there," Aneisha added hopefully. I nodded, grateful that the team were so willing to help me.

"Let's go then," I said. Opening the door, I noticed a door opposite me with more swirly writing on it. I walked up to it and read the words.  
"Sala del Dolore? Hall of Pain?" I asked myself out loud.  
"Well that sounds like a fun room!" Tom said sarcastically.  
"Tom!" Aneisha scolded, looking at me expectantly.

"Torture room, maybe? Stella could be in there," I said to them all. They agreed with me and entered fighting position, in case Grimmera came out of there. I opened the door a little and looked inside. It was dark, I couldn't see properly. I reached in to find a light switch on the wall next to me and turned it on. Stella lay on a metal table in the centre of the room, covered in blood and tied to the table. Her wrist looked broken and there was a large gash across her chest.

"Stella!" I cried, walking into the room and standing above her. The team followed after me.  
"Oh my god!" Aneisha sobbed, upon seeing Stella's corpse like form. Immediately, I checked to see if she had a pulse, sighing deeply when I found one.  
"How could someone do this to her?" I snarled, quickly beginning to untie the rope that held her to the table.

Tom and Dan went around the table and started to untie her feet while Aneisha helped me with her arms. After untying one arm, I went closer to Stella's face to try and wake her up, as she was unconscious on the table.  
"Stella," I whispered next to her ear, "Stella, wake up, we need you, I need you!" When she didn't move, I shook her lightly.  
"Please," I sobbed, "I can't live without you, Stella I love you!"

Stella moved her head a little, her eyes fluttering open sleepily. When she saw me, she sat upright and looked around, looking for someone. She tried to get off the table, wincing in pain.  
"Stella! Stay still," Dan said, stopping as he realized what that meant. The team looked up, eyes widening as they saw her awake.

"No! I need to go," Stella said shakily, still struggling to get up. I frowned in confusion.  
"Stella, why do you need to go?" I asked. She looked at me, unfocused.  
"Because… I've got to stop her," she continued.  
"Who have you got to stop?" Tom asked warily.  
"Jess!" Stella said loudly, struggling even more. Tom had untied her and so had Aneisha but, thankfully, Dan hadn't finished yet. I stopped him as Stella was obviously feeling unstable and needed to be kept safe. Tom frowned at her.

"No, Stella, it's okay. Jess isn't working for Grimmera like we thought.  
"I know that," Stella snapped.  
"Then… why have you got to stop her?" I asked her, moving over to Dan. Stella sighed, seeming to calm down.  
"How about you untie me, then I can tell you!" Stella asked with pleading eyes, eyes I could never say no to.

"Okay," I said carefully, signalling that Dan should untie her. I told Aneisha to go stand near her arm in case she decided to move suddenly.  
"Thank you," Stella said, rubbing her broken wrist, before noticing its broken state. She sighed and put her arm down, winging her legs around the table.  
"So," Tom said expectantly.

"We need to stop her," Stella said again, standing up slowly and carefully. I rubbed my forehead.  
"Stella, you've said that already, why do we need to stop her?" I asked slowly, not wanting to push her.  
"She's going to kill herself," Stella replied, earning four pairs of widened eyes.

"What?" Tom asked, panic seeping into his face.  
"Jess, she's going to sacrifice her own life, I couldn't stop her, she knocked me out before I could try," Stella said, wearily rubbing her face. All of the blood seemed to drain out of Tom's face.  
"No," he whispered. Stella laughed a little.  
"That's what I said," she nodded, beginning to walk away, "We have to stop her."

"Why is she going to commit suicide? She said she was going to stop the virus," I asked. Stella turned and looked into my eyes, her face tired and pale, covered in her own blood.  
"Don't you see, by stopping the virus, she sacrifices her own life in the process, I can't let her do that. I don't want anyone to die," Stella answered. When she was met with four confused faces, she explained further.

"Her DNA, or the DNA from anyone in her family, is the cure to the virus. There is a machine here that will take that DNA and pump it through the country, curing anyone with the anger virus," Stella clarified.  
"Isn't there another way?" Tom asked. Stella began to shake her head but stopped suddenly, a look of realization spreading through her face. She walked up to a cupboard and opened it, revealing a girl sat in it, asleep, and her nose bleeding.

"Uh, why is there a child in that cupboard?" Aneisha asked, checking the girl for a pulse.  
"This is Jennifer, Jess' sister," Stella explained. Aneisha gasped and jumped away from her.  
"Really, she looks nothing like Jess," Tom asked sceptically, poking the girl in the arm.  
"I know, but we could use Jen's DNA to send out the cure," Stella answered. Tom looked relieved but Aneisha, Dan and I frowned at the suggestion.

"We can't just kill Jen because we want Jess alive, that makes us just as bad as Grimmera," Dan argued. Stella frowned.  
"We can't let an innocent girl die when we have a criminal that could take her place," Stella shot back, Tom nodding with her.  
"Stella," I interrupted, "I agree with Dan."

Stella gasped, stepping back.  
"But, we could get the MI9 scientists here to find another way to stop the virus," I replied. Stella seemed to think this over, slowly nodding.  
"Okay, that is what I originally thought," Stella started, "But we still need to stop Jess before she gets herself killed."

I nodded in agreement and so did the team. Stella went to walk towards the door but she almost fell over. I rushed over to her, catching her before she hit the ground. She looked up at me tiredly, her eyes widening as she pushed me off and got up.  
"No, let me help you walk," I said and walked over to her, letting her lean on my shoulder for support.

Stella didn't like the fact that even she needed help sometimes. She would rather carry on in pain than accept help from another, being the independent woman she was. Sometimes, I wondered if that was why we split up, because she couldn't cope with having someone who wanted to help her around. I walked her forward, the team walking ahead of us, Stella guiding them on where we should go. She directed us through a different door and down a dark empty corridor, checking every door for text.

"Frank," Stella whispered, quiet enough for me and only me to hear.  
"Hmm?"  
"Did you mean what you said?"  
"What I said?"  
"When you tried to wake me up?" Stella asked. I looked down at her face, so beautiful and delicate that it hurt to see her in pain. I looked down on her clear, determined eyes that never faded. I looked down at her and nodded, answering her question. Stella smiled a little, turning back to face forward.

"That's good, me too," Stella whispered, telling me in her own way, that she needed me too, she loved me like I loved her.  
"Stella? Frank?" Tom asked, stopping. I looked up, seeing that we could go left or right.  
"Alright, Aneisha and Tom, go left," I ordered. They nodded and ran off.  
"Dan, help me and Stella go right," I finished, Dan supporting Stella's left.

We carried on down the right corridor relatively slowly until we came to a dead end. There wasn't any doors or anything that would help us. Dan let go of Stella and walked forward, searching for something but tripping over and falling onto the floor.  
"Ow," he said, sitting up, "What was that?"

I looked closely at the floor and noticed a small handle sticking out of the ground. Next to the handle was some text, etched into the floor. I left Stella leaning against the wall while I bent down to read the words.  
"Il vaso di Pandora… non deve mai… essere chiuso?" I read.

"What?" Dan asked, bending down to see the text. I tilted my head in confusion.  
"Italian for 'Pandora's box shall never be closed,' I think," I answered.  
"Pandora's Box? It could mean, the anger virus, maybe?" Stella asked, hobbling over to the text on the floor.  
"Hmm, it could. Is this, perhaps, a trap door?" I asked, pulling up the handle experimentally. It opened with ease, revealing a staircase leading down.

"Hey, find anything?" Tom asked, coming up from behind me and peering down the staircase.  
"Well, we found this, you?" Dan replied. Aneisha shook her head.  
"Nothing, except for a fire exit," she said.  
"Oh, well, we think this might be where the cure machine is and therefore where Jess is, look at the top of the trapdoor," Stella said, pointing at the trap door. Tom and Aneisha shut the door and looked at the writing on top.  
"Il vaso di Pandora non deve mai essere chiuso? What the heck does this mean?" Tom asked, looking at me quizzically.

"It's Italian for Pandora's box shall never be closed," I replied, reopening the trapdoor.  
"And, what the heck does that mean?" Aneisha asked, casually stepping down the stairs. I shrugged and followed her, Stella following me, Tom following Stella and Dan following Tom.  
"We think it could be a reference to the anger virus. Down her could be the way to stop the virus," I began, Stella finishing the sentence for me.  
"Also known as the way to close Pandora's box."

I nodded and walked ahead of Aneisha as we reached the end of the staircase. There was a door in front of us with big red text spread across it. I sighed.  
"More Italian translating. Benvenuti… nelle profondità… dell'inferno," I read aloud, translating as I went, "Welcome to the depths of hell?"  
"It certainly seems inviting," Tom joked, lightening the mood with his sarcasm.

"Well, here goes nothing," I muttered. The tension in the air was thick as I opened the door, the creaking of it unbearable. I poked my head around the corner to see Jess, strapping herself into a big machine, holding a button in her hand. I swung the door open all of the way and rushed in, stopping her from pressing it.

"Damn it!" she cursed, holding onto the button tightly.


	29. Chapter 29 - The End

Chapter 29: The End…

"Ow!" I said, getting up from the floor where I had fell over something. I ran my hand over the floor to see if could feel what I fell over. There was a handle next to my foot.  
"A… trapdoor?" I asked myself before I saw the words that had been scraped into the floor. It was in Italian, a language I knew from my mother. She had taught me how to speak it when I was younger, when I first started to develop speech.

"Pandora's box shall never be closed, sounds about right," I said, pulling up the handle to go down. I supposed that the virus was known as Pandora's box, like a code so that people like Tom and his friends, people with the intent of stopping the virus, wouldn't automatically know that the cure was down there. There was a staircase leading down so I shrugged and decided to just go for it.

"What's the point in questioning it?" I asked myself, slowly stepping down the stairs. It was quite sad actually, I realized, how easily I had accepted my own death.  
"I guess having people to save, people you care about, makes it easier to forget yourself and your own life," I thought, smiling at the thought of people I cared for. One main name popped into my head; Tom.

I was so glad I had gone left, because that way I got to see Tom one last time. One last time. The words rung in my head like a siren. My natural sense of self-preservation kicked it when I thought those words but I shook it off. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn't notice the door in front of me until I bumped into it. I read the words on the door and smiled to myself.  
"Welcome to the depths of hell," I read. Of course it said that. If anyone went down here, they would be dying, they would be going to hell, the place where anyone in Grimmera's family deserved to be. I shuddered, instantly forcing myself to ignore the thoughts. I focused on the fact that I would be saving Tom, Stella and everyone else.

I opened the door to a clean, light room that looked nothing like hell. In the centre of the room was a glass box that was hooked up to a big computer on a big glass desk. This was definitely it! I headed over to the computer and found that it was quite simple to set it up. The password was my birthday, of course, and was an easy guess. After that, all I had to do was link the starting code to the remote that lay on the desk.

I opened up the glass chamber and heard a soft noise as I was locked in. I strapped myself onto the chair in the chamber and was about to press the button when the door blasted open and Frank, Stella, Aneisha, Dan and Tom ran in.  
"Damn it!" I cursed, holding my head in my hand. Why did they have to find me?

"Jess, please don't do this!" Tom shouted.  
"Jess, we can get the MI9 scientists, they will find another way!" Stella cried.  
"Jess, this doesn't have to be the end!" Aneisha yelled.  
"Enough! Stop it please!" I screamed, silencing their pleas.

"I can save you all! Can't you see that? I can save fifteen innocent people who have been affected by this virus along with the whole of Britain! Where's Keri, huh? She breathed in the virus didn't she! I can save her as well! I can save Angie and Frank and Stella and Aneisha and Dan and Keri and Mr Flatly and Mrs King and fifteen prisoners and, most importantly, you, Tom!" I cried, desperate for them to understand.  
"No! Please, we can get the scientist here, they're smart enough to make a cure without you needing to die!" Tom wailed. I shook my head in reply.

"That won't work. Everyone in Britain is under influence of the anger virus. They wouldn't help while under it, they couldn't. The only reason we aren't affected is because the building is airtight. This, my death, is literally the only option!" I said, finally getting through to them.  
"But," Tom stuttered, walking closer to the chamber I sat in, "I don't want you to die!"

I covered my face as a tear rolled down my cheek. I looked up, into his eyes.  
"I don't want to die, why would I?" I answered. He smiled a little and tried to open the door.  
"Great, so let's get you out and find another way," he nodded, again trying to open the door.  
"But I still have to do this, for you and your friends," I said but he frowned.  
"I don't care, you shouldn't have to do this, I should be finding a way for me to save you, not the other way around," he pleaded. I placed my hand on the door of the glass chamber and he put his hand over it on the other side.

"You are saving me by letting me do this for you all, saving me from a lifetime of guilt if my selfishness let people die," I said softly. Tom looked down and moved over to the computer. My eyes widened.  
"Tom!" I warned as he began to fiddle with the computer. He ignored me.

"Frank, help me out here," he asked.  
"No Frank, don't you dare move," I advised but he ignored me too. I shook my head as they tried to stop it but they needed a password. I smiled as I realized that in the week or so that I had known Tom, I hadn't told him my birthday.  
"Jess, what's the password?" Tom asked, turning to me desperately.

"I never told you my birthday did I?" I smiled. Tom gasped and looked at me sadly.  
"Will you tell me now?" he asked. I smiled again.  
"Sure," I said and hope spread across his face, quickly replaced by fear when he saw my thumb come down on the button, starting a ten second countdown.  
"1st of May," I smiled, tears rolling down my cheek as I calmly embraced death.

Tom banged on the glass, crying himself.  
"No! Stop it!" he cried as the countdown reached five.  
"Tom," I said, he looked up at me, "I'm going to miss you so much, it's a shame we didn't get to go on that date!"

I felt a shock as white light shone around me, the machine whirring, starting to work. My body felt light, weightless, as if I was flying and I felt warm arms wrap around me, holding me together as life left me. I opened my eyes and saw Tom smiling down on me, that sweet, sarcastic smile that I loved so much and felt happy as a warmth spread through my heart, felt happy knowing that Tom's face was the last thing I would see before I died…


	30. Chapter 30 - Is Just the Beginning

**I can't believe anyone thought that was the end! I am very OCD so this story was never going to end on 29! Enjoy the real last chapter of my first ever completed fanfic!**

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Chapter 30: …Is Just the Beginning

_Beep, beep, beep_. That was all I could hear. It wasn't what I expected death to be like. All I could see was a blinding white light and I couldn't hear anything. Apart from the constant _beep, beep, beep_. It was like an alarm clock, reminding me to wake up, but I couldn't. I couldn't move, I couldn't think. All I could do was listen to the _beep, beep, beep_. My thoughts were jumbled in my head, my mind slow and unthinking. _Beep_. I didn't want this any longer. _Beep_. I didn't want to be dead, not really._ Beep_. I just wanted to help them. _Beep_. Them? _Beep_. There was a name. _Beep._ I couldn't remember it. _Beep_. It was. _Beep_. Began with a T? _Beep. _Tom? Tom. Tom! That was it! That was the person I wanted to save. Why?_ Beep_. There was a feeling. I felt something in my. _Beep_. Hand? It was. _Beep._ Warm and soft and. _Beep._ It reminded me of something. A… an emotion. A sense of calm. A feeling that wasn't pain. _Beep_. A feeling that made the beeping faster. _Beep, beep, beep, beep_. And it was nicer that the white, harsh light. It was louder and more soothing than the beeping, that annoying beeping. It was? What was it? My mind was foggy but for a second I had felt something that I wanted. _Beep_. Hope and something else. I held onto the hope, fearing it would slip away, plunging me back into the pain of nothingness. _Beep. _Heart! Heart not hand! It was a warmth that spread quickly in my heart, taking away the cold that had seeped into my soul, a warmth that made the beeping faster and the words and thoughts clearer. It was. _Beep_. I knew the word! _Beep_. It was life and all the crazy, painful, stupid, wonderful words that came with it. Love and loss and happiness and hope! It was something that I wanted, despite the tears and the guilt and the pain it could bring, it was something I wanted again, something that I had hope I would have again. The beeping became faster, stronger and more consistent and my muddled mind made sense of it. It wasn't an alarm, it was a heart monitor at a hospital. Feeling in my body slowly began to return, a tingling first in my toes that began to climb up until I could feel a hand in my hand. Experimentally, I twitched my toe, surprised when it moved a little. I didn't want the feeling to go away so I slowly tried moving my fingers. When they moved, I tried to blink in shock but I couldn't blink. It was like my eyes were already closed. Instead, I tried opening my left eye, just a little, to see if I could see anything other than the whiteness of nothing. My heart lifted when I saw someone sat on a chair next to a bed, a bed that I was lay on, holding my hand. It was Tom, I was sure of it! It broke my heart to see him so sad. I smiled inwardly when I remembered that I still had a beating heart to break. I needed to say something, to test if this was all real, if I wasn't dead somehow. I squeezed his hand slightly and saw his eyes widen through the slit of my open eye.

"Hey," I whispered, amazing myself at how normal my voice sounded. Tom looked up properly and blinked at me. I squeezed his hand again to show him that I was okay. He looked down at his hand and back up to me as I opened my eyes wider and moved my head a bit.  
"Tom? Are you okay?" I asked, as he looked like he was in shock. He was pale too and looked oddly tired.

"Don't you are you okay me! I'm not the one who's been in a coma for a week!" he said, sounding a little angry. I was scared that he hated me as he got up and paced around the room.  
"Why didn't you let me stop you?" he asked sadly, sitting back down and holding his head in his hand.

"Hey, I'm back now, aren't I? I'm not dead, wait. How am I not dead?" I asked, suddenly curious. He looked up at me, his eyes weary and slightly calmer than before.  
"The machine took a lot of your blood. It was a certain chemical that was in your blood that was the cure. The second you passed out in the chamber, we took you out and I went with you in the ambulance to the hospital where they put you on life support," he said sadly. I looked down.  
"I haven't slept or eaten much for a week, and I don't know why," he whispered, "I've just sat here, waiting for you to wake up!"

I was about to speak when I heard voices from the corridor outside my hospital room.  
"Hey Tom, you want a drink or anything," Aneisha said absentmindedly, walking in. She looked up, her eyes widening when she saw me. She rushed back out of the room and I could hear muffled shouts from outside. Suddenly, Aneisha, Keri, Dan and Frank hurried in. Dan and Frank stood at the end of my bed while Aneisha and Keri on my bed, next to me.

"Yay! You're awake," Keri said chirpily, bouncing a little on the bed.  
"It's good to see you not in a coma," Aneisha interrupted.  
"We need to go shopping together so we can all become best friends!" she added, pointing between me, herself and Aneisha, who rolled her eyes at Keri's excitement.  
"If we can prise you away from Tom," Aneisha laughed winking at Tom, who began to blush a little, and leaving the room, Keri in tow.

"Jess?" Dan asked.  
"Maybe… I was wrong, to not trust you," Dan finished sheepishly.  
"It's okay. I wouldn't have trusted me too," I said calmly with a smile. Dan smiled back awkwardly, probably adjusting to thinking of me as a friends instead of an enemy. He left the room soon after.  
"You did well, Jess. Other than your complete disregard for your own life, you show many good qualities of an MI9 agent. Maybe you would like to consider joining MI High," Frank asked, leaving me and Tom alone again.

We sat in silence until Tom decided to speak up.  
"I thought I'd lost you," he whispered, catching my attention. Carefully, I swung my legs out of the bed so I was facing Tom. I was wearing a simple blue hospital gown.  
"I don't know what I'd do without you and I don't even know you that well. I only found out your birthday last week," he said, looking back up at me.

"Then maybe we should change that," I said quietly. Tom frowned at me in confusion.  
"Maybe we should start over," I added.  
"Hi, my name's Jess, what's yours?" I asked with a smile, sticking out my hand. Tom chuckled and reached out for my hand, shaking it.  
"Tom Tupper," he replied with his signature smile.  
"I love your smile, Tom," I said, making him blush.  
"Did you know that a Blade Quest film came out last week?" Tom asked me. I shook my head.  
"No, why do you ask?" I answered.  
"Would you like to go see it with me, it should still be showing in the cinemas?" he said.

I smiled and stood up, and so did Tom.  
"I would love to," I said softly. Tom looked into my eyes for a second before leaning closer to me. My heart beat faster and I closed my eyes. I felt Tom kiss me, his warm lips calming me, releasing any worries I had from me. He wrapped his arms around my waist and I tangled my hands in his hair, pulling his head closer. My lungs began to ask for oxygen so I slowly pulled away, resting my head on his shoulder.

I knew that things weren't perfect. I found out later that Grimmera had gotten away with Jen and I wondered if, maybe, there was a way I could have stopped them, maybe if I made different decisions. Stella was still in hospital, having lost a lot of blood like I had but she was making a steady recovery, Frank sitting by her side every day. Quite a few of the prisoners died whilst fighting each other. I had no family to go home to, or a home for that matter.

I was sure that this wasn't the end of my story, it was just the beginning of my new life with people who cared for me more than anyone ever had. Yes, I knew everything wasn't perfect but nothing in the real world ever was. I just had to focus on my offer into MI High, my new friends and Tom, instead of remembering the bad things. Because at the end of the day, all I had left was the good people and the good moments to come and that was pretty perfect on its own…


	31. Author's Message: Thank You!

Author's Message: Thank You

Wow, it has been a long journey to get here! I know that this is just another fanfic to all of you, but to me, this is my first ever finished story, on fanfiction or in real life.  
It's taken me over to months to finish and has lasted over 35,000 words, 70 word document pages in 11 font, 560 paragraphs and 2,770 lines!  
I just wanted to write this little thank you note to say, well, thank you! I wouldn't have been bothered to actually finish this if it wasn't for everyone who has reviewed so far. You have no idea how many times I have sat in a corner of my room, rocking back and forth, waiting for a review after posting a new chapter!

Authorlouise: Thank you for being the first ever person to review my first ever fanfic, asking if there would be any Frella. It was because of you that I included a few Frella moments! Also, thanks for reviewing almost every chapter!

SamiBrit14: Thank you for noticing that Jess was quite sneaky and for saying I was a good writer. Sometimes I worry that I make simple things too long or other things too short!

Amazing Stella: Thank you for making me rewatch the whole of series 6 because I couldn't remember what Snarl was! I then went on to rewatch the whole of series 7, causing a lot of time to be wasted! J

Rockmusicismylife: Thank you for agreeing that you can like P.E and Maths and calling my story awesome. I say this a lot but it really does mean a lot that people like my story!

Ellenarnia: Thank you for being curious and liking the cliff-hanger (Or hating it!) I also agree that chapter 29 was depressing and sad, that was another reason why I added chapter 30!

Learningotflyy: Thank you for showing me (Through a review) that people wanted the torture, as I feared that no-one would want it!

R3B3CC4: Thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks for requesting more chapters!

H.E.R.M.I.O.N.E.X.O.X: Thanks you for liking the updates. Again, it is really great to know that people actually like this fanfic!

Mermaidfan121: Thank you for reminding me what H2O: Just add water was (I looked at your favourite stories and I saw some H2O fanfics there) I used to love that show but I couldn't remember what it was called!

XxHannah123xX: Thank you for eventually reading my fanfic after it kept popping up! Also, I did the apron thing because I thought it would be ironic that such an awful human being could wear something usually associated with something not-awful!

TeamFrellaAndCarlisleAndEsme: Thank you for voting left!

AlexRiderandMIHigh4infinity: Thank you for being one of the few people who voted right, the choice I originally wanted!

Guests: Thank you for reviewing my story, anyone who reviewed as a guest!

Basically, thank you everyone for supporting me on my first fanfic and first ever completed story. I hope you enjoy any more MI High stories I will write in the future or any other non-MI High stories I write, if you read them!

Goodbye and Thank You!


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